Publisher: Elsevier BV

Issue:

License: [{"start"=>{"date-parts"=>[[2026, 5, 1]], "date-time"=>"2026-05-01T00:00:00Z", "timestamp"=>1777593600000}, "content-version"=>"tdm", "delay-in-days"=>0, "URL"=>"https://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/"}, {"start"=>{"date-parts"=>[[2026, 5, 1]], "date-time"=>"2026-05-01T00:00:00Z", "timestamp"=>1777593600000}, "content-version"=>"tdm", "delay-in-days"=>0, "URL"=>"https://www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license"}, {"start"=>{"date-parts"=>[[2026, 4, 7]], "date-time"=>"2026-04-07T00:00:00Z", "timestamp"=>1775520000000}, "content-version"=>"vor", "delay-in-days"=>0, "URL"=>"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"}]

Publication date(s): 2026/05 (print)

Pages: 175992

Volume: 536 Issue:

Journal: Chemical Engineering Journal

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Catalytic hollow fibre-based reactors (HFRs) offer a compact, efficient and cost-effective alternative to conventional reactor designs, with strong potential for on-board carbon utilisation. Despite experimental progress, the modelling of coupled transport-reaction phenomena in catalytic HFRs remains limited. This study develops a stepwise modelling framework to examine transport and reaction behaviour in the channel, the catalyst-coated finger and their coupled configuration. Results show that effective reactant delivery requires radial diffusion to be faster than axial advection, establishing a minimum reactor length for sustained conversion. Within the finger, diffusion dominates, leading to the definition of a characteristic finger decay length that provides the basis for a maximum effective finger length for optimal catalyst use. These insights inform the geometric and operational design of a catalytic HFR module for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. Experimentally, the HFR enhanced the performance of a Cu-ZnO/ZrO₂ catalyst by a factor of three compared with a fixed bed reactor (FBR), due to intensified reactant–catalyst interaction and improved residence time distribution. The findings provide a quantitative framework for designing compact, high-performance reactors for distributed CO2 utilisation and other gas-phase catalytic processes. Highlights • Stepwise modelling framework developed for catalytic hollow fibre reactors (HFRs). • Defined minimum reactor length for sustained reactant conversion. • Introduced characteristic finger decay length for optimal catalyst use. • HFR investigated experimentally for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. • HFR improved catalyst efficiency three-fold compared to the fixed bed reactor.

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