German Title: Optimale Steuerung einer reaktiven Staupunktstroemung auf einer katalytischen Oberflaeche

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Translation of abstract (English)

Chemical reactions on catalytic surfaces are a very active and intense research area. In many cases the transport of the chemical species to and from the catalyst is also important. Therefore it is necessary to couple the equations for the surface reactions with the equations of the flow field. One experimental configuration, which has received much attention over the last few years, is the reactive stagnation point flow on a catalytic plate. After evaluation of the reaction mechanisms the next step is to look for optimal process conditions. In this thesis a new software package has been developed based on the simulation code DIFRUN and the optimal control package OCPRSQP. This new code provides us for the first time with a software tool for the optimal control of a reactive stagnation point flow on a catalytic plate for different chemical processes. Only minimal effort is needed going from one chemical system to another. This required an overall design to use the desired features of DIFRUN and OCPRSQP and several conceptual changes, new algorithms and modifications to OCPRSQP. In the present work, this package is applied for computing the optimal solution to several practical problems: the catalytic partial oxidation of methane to syngas, the epoxidation of ethylene on silver, and the catalytic oxygen-free conversion of methane to ethane.