Dear Yamini, sorry to see that your interesting technical question has not yet received any expert answers. As an inorganic chemist I'm cleary not an expert in this field of research. However, I will try to suggest to you some potentially useful resources. For example, it might be worth watching the following tutorial video:

ASPEN PLUS Tutorial: RPLUG Reactor with Catalyst (by ScuolaTech)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv7fhXcX_zU

Also please see the following literature reference which might help you in your analysis:

Process Simulation for the Design and Scale Up of Heterogeneous Catalytic Process: Kinetic Modelling Issues

Fortunately this review article has been published Open Access and is freely available as public full text (please see attached pdf file).

Good luck with your research and best wishes!

Hi Yamini,

The value you have (0.59 g/cm3) should be the bed density or bulk density of the catalyst (rho_b), which is different from the solid catalyst density (rho_cat). In this case, simply multiply 590 kg/m3 by the reactor volume in m3 to obtain the catalyst load in kg (Wcat=rho_b*Vreactor). Note that rho_b depends on reactor diameter and pellet size.

If it was rho_cat, you would need the bed porosity (eps) to get the catalyst loading: Wcat=rho_cat*(1-eps)*Vreactor.

Frank T. Edelmann, Oscar W. Perez-Lopez Thank you for your responses to my inquiry. I appreciate the information you have provided me with, and I appreciate your prompt reply.

However, I couldn't finish my simulation for ammonia synthesis yet. Please go through the simulation file attached and let me know if there is any mistake in parameters I took. I couldn't get any amount of ammonia as product.

Hi Dr Yamini Kandregula . See the following link: https://www.catalystseurope.org/images/Documents/ECMA1004q_-_Catalyst_handling_best_practice_guide.pdf

See the following RG link : Article Determination of Catalyst Loading and Shortcut Design for Bi...

Also see the following link: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-50532015000200359

Kindly see also the following link: https://www.topsoe.com/services/technical-services/catalyst-loading

Dear Yamini, thank you for your kind response and question. Unfortunately I could not open the attached file, but, as I said, I'm absolutely no expert in this field. Instead, I suggest that you search the internet for the term "simulation of ammonia synthesis in Aspen Plus using RPLUG". This will give you a list of potentially useful links, including some more specific video tutorials:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=simulation+of+ammonia+synthesis+in+Aspen+Plus+using+RPLUG&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Among these links you will also find a few relevant articles such as the following:

Ammonia Synthesis with Aspen Plus® V8.0

https://lms.nchu.edu.tw/sysdata/doc/1/196bb4d4fac4c3d7/pdf.pdf

and

PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA AT RELATIVELY LOW P, T: ASPEN PROCESS ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Article PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA AT RELATIVELY LOW P, T: ASPEN PROCESS ...

The second article is freely available as pubic full text on RG and the corresponding author has an RG profile (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kamal-Al-Malah). I think it would be a good idea to send him a message via RG and ask him directly for some expert advice. How about that? 😎

Good luck with your work and best wishes, Frank Edelmann

In Aspen plus, Catalyst loading is the mass of catalyst used and it can't be found from density of the catalyst. Any two of Density of catalyst, Reactor bed voidage, catalyst loading is needed to specify the catalyst in RPLUG.