Shailesh Mudaliar
Principal Technical Professional - Process
KBR
Mr. Shailesh Mudaliar has been working in the energy industry for almost 15 years. He is currently working as Principal Process Engineer. He has spent over 12 years in specialization of Distillation Column Internals and Reactor Internals. At KBR currently working for past 6 years and has been involved in Ammonia Feed and BED projects.
Participates in
TECHNICAL PROGRAMME | Energy Fuels and Molecules
Hydrogen (Green and Blue); Ammonia; Methanol
Forum 14 | Digital Poster Plaza 3
28
April
12:30
14:30
UTC+3
To meet the growing global demand for ammonia—driven by its essential role in agriculture and low-carbon energy systems—there is a critical need for scalable and efficient production technologies. The continuous upscaling of ammonia production facilities necessitates the development of innovative engineering solutions to address the limitations of traditional reactor designs.
Traditional ammonia production facilities, with capacities ranging between 1,000 - 3,000 metric tons per day (MTPD), comprise of conventional reactor designs, which rely on single catalyst beds, encounter major limitations in reactor design, including excessive reactor diameters, space constraints, and complex material requirements when using same design approach for giga-scale plants exceeding 3000 such as for 6000 MTPD.
These challenges hinder the scalability, cost efficiency, and environmental compliance of high—capacity ammonia plants, necessitating innovative reactor designs to address these limitations. First, the reactor diameters increase significantly, complicating manufacturing, transportation, and site installation leading to logistical issues. Then, the larger catalyst beds result in increased pressure drops leading to higher energy consumption and thus impacting energy efficiency. Third, the expanded reactor sizes require larger plot areas, which may not be feasible in existing facilities and results in space constraints and finally, there are material challenges resulting from increased shell thickness for larger reactors creates difficulties in material procurement and fabrication.
This paper introduces the Split Flow Reactor (SFR), an innovative solution developed by KBR to address these challenges in catalyst converters such as High Temperature Shift (HTS) converters, Low Temperature Shift (LTS) converters, and Methanation Units. Unlike conventional design, the SFR splits the syngas and catalyst bed into two parallel flow sections within a single reactor shell.
By using the parallel bed configuration with optimized flow distribution- without compromising on flow rates, the SFR achieves reduced pressure drop, compact reactor dimensions – addresses manufacturing and logistics constraints, superior energy efficiency, reduced rector footprints – eliminating the need of multiple reactors and up to 25% savings in cost and plot area.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations validate the reactor's performance, confirming improvements in velocity profiles, temperature distribution, and pressure management compared to traditionally designed reactor setups.
Specifically tailored for large capacity ammonia plants, the SFR marks a transformative step in reactor design, offering a scalable, energy-efficient, and cost-effective solution that sets a new industry standard for large-capacity ammonia plants.
Co-author/s:
Sudesh Joon, Technical Advisor, KBR.
Traditional ammonia production facilities, with capacities ranging between 1,000 - 3,000 metric tons per day (MTPD), comprise of conventional reactor designs, which rely on single catalyst beds, encounter major limitations in reactor design, including excessive reactor diameters, space constraints, and complex material requirements when using same design approach for giga-scale plants exceeding 3000 such as for 6000 MTPD.
These challenges hinder the scalability, cost efficiency, and environmental compliance of high—capacity ammonia plants, necessitating innovative reactor designs to address these limitations. First, the reactor diameters increase significantly, complicating manufacturing, transportation, and site installation leading to logistical issues. Then, the larger catalyst beds result in increased pressure drops leading to higher energy consumption and thus impacting energy efficiency. Third, the expanded reactor sizes require larger plot areas, which may not be feasible in existing facilities and results in space constraints and finally, there are material challenges resulting from increased shell thickness for larger reactors creates difficulties in material procurement and fabrication.
This paper introduces the Split Flow Reactor (SFR), an innovative solution developed by KBR to address these challenges in catalyst converters such as High Temperature Shift (HTS) converters, Low Temperature Shift (LTS) converters, and Methanation Units. Unlike conventional design, the SFR splits the syngas and catalyst bed into two parallel flow sections within a single reactor shell.
By using the parallel bed configuration with optimized flow distribution- without compromising on flow rates, the SFR achieves reduced pressure drop, compact reactor dimensions – addresses manufacturing and logistics constraints, superior energy efficiency, reduced rector footprints – eliminating the need of multiple reactors and up to 25% savings in cost and plot area.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations validate the reactor's performance, confirming improvements in velocity profiles, temperature distribution, and pressure management compared to traditionally designed reactor setups.
Specifically tailored for large capacity ammonia plants, the SFR marks a transformative step in reactor design, offering a scalable, energy-efficient, and cost-effective solution that sets a new industry standard for large-capacity ammonia plants.
Co-author/s:
Sudesh Joon, Technical Advisor, KBR.
