LQ-control of a flow reversal reactor for the catalytic combustion of fugitive methane emissions

This paper deals with linear-quadratic control problem for a catalytic flow reversal reactor using an infinite dimensional Hilbert space representation of the system. A LQ-controller is developed on the basis of the catalytic reactor with unidirectional flow. The controller is formulated to keep the distribution of the temperature along the axis of the reactor at stationary state by using the fluid flow velocity. We study the application of the controller on the catalytic reactor with reverse flow operation. We take advantage of the two-time scale characteristic of catalytic tubular reactors to develop a controller that requires only the measurement of the temperature along the axis of the reactor. Using the infinite dimensional state space, a state LQ-feedback operator is computed via the solution of a Riccati differential equation. The developed controller is tested numerically for the catalytic combustion of lean methane emissions in CFRR unit and implemented for a reactor configuration at the CANMET Energy Technology Centre Varennes, Quebec, Canada, and currently experimental tests are underway.