Development of a generic model of a ruthenium reactor

Abstract

A mathematical first-principle model (FPM) of a ruthenium reactor was developed, implemented and successfully validated against a set of measurements of the real reactor of a precious metal refinery (PMR). The model describes the dynamic behavior of a process involving two exothermic reactions, occurring simultaneously in a semi-batch reactor equipped with a jacket. The reactions describe the dissolution of solid ruthenium (Ru) to produce liquid ruthenium trichloride (RuCl3), which is then evaporated into ruthenium tetroxide gas (RuO4). This paper presents a lumped model of the process whose main objective was to achieve satisfactory tracking of temperature and pressure data sets of the real reactor. The model was written as an explicit system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and has demonstrated satisfactory predictions of temperature and pressure dynamics. However, more work aiming at achieving better validation of the model is still in progress. This involves using nonlinear optimization techniques to find optimum parameter estimates of reaction kinetics constants, together with some heat and mass transfer coefficients, only obtained by trial-and-error at this point.