General Approach for the Reduction of Detailed Models for Fast Cycling Processes

Regenerative fixed-bed processes are widely applied in chemical and environmental engineering. However, their theoretical analysis lags behind industrial implementation due to extremely timeconsuming numerical simulation. Shortcut models have been introduced in order to facilitate efficient parametric analysis, Interestingly, independent approaches for different systems led to membrane processes as a generalized steady-state analogon of regenerative processes. Despite the successful application of the membrane analogy, a theoretical framework summarizing the common features of the different cases has been missing so far and existing reduced models rely on arbitrary assumptions. The present paper introduces a general method to derive shortcut models of fast cycling processes preserving a maximum of the features of the original system. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated using a reverse-flow reactor and a pressureswing adosrption process as test cases,