Pore‐scale study of reactive transfer process involving coke deposition via lattice Boltzmann method

Abstract Coke deposition during catalytic industrial processes can lead to the narrowing and blockage of pore structures inside particles so as to influence the catalyst performance. In this work, a direct pore‐scale simulation is carried out by the lattice Boltzmann method to investigate the change of pore structures caused by coke formation. Coke deposition processes in the single pore and complex porous medium are evaluated. The interaction of pore structure and mass transfer under the condition of coke deposition is analyzed. The results reveal that the pore narrowing and blockage can hinder the viscous flow and Knudsen diffusion, resulting in the change of mass transfer mechanism, which is sensitive to gas rarefaction effect and coke deposition rate as well as surface roughness. For the complex porous medium, the uniformity of pore size distribution becomes weak under the gas rarefaction effect and coke deposition.