Two-Dimensional Mathematical Modeling of the Oxidative Coupling of Methane in a Membrane Reactor

The oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) in a dense BSCFO membrane reactor (MR) was theoretically studied using a two-dimensional reactor model. The simulation results indicated that increasing the operating temperature results in increased CH4 conversion and decreased C2 selectivity. An increase in the methane feed flow rate lowers the CH4 conversion but increases the C2 selectivity; however, the effect of the air flow rate on the OCM membrane reactor exhibits an opposite trend. The optimum configuration of the dense BSCFO-MR to provide the best performance was 0.018 m in diameter and 0.2 m in length at a GHSV of 38904.54 h-1 and temperature of 1073 K. Under these optimal conditions, the CH4 conversion is 43.713%, the C2 selectivity is 61.352% and the C2 yield is 26.82%