Performance Analysis of a Helical Reactor Configuration for Adsorbed Natural Gas Storage

The subject work presents a transient analysis of adsorbed natural (methane) gas storage in a helical reactor filled with Maxsorb-III as adsorbent. The storage system’s performance is compared with that of the simple cylindrical reactor for constant pressure and constant mass inflow conditions for a given reactor height and internal volume. For the analysis, two types of reactors are considered, i.e., a radial inlet close storage tank (with constant pressure charging) and an axial inlet open tank (with constant flow charging), in which non-adsorbed gas passes through a heat exchanger and recirculates. The results show that with constant pressure charging, 28%, and constant flow rate charging (for circulating flow), 5.5 times more methane concentration is found with the helical reactor configuration than with the cylindrical reactor of the same height and internal volume.