COCO, a process simulator: methane oxidation simulation & its agreement with commercial simulator’s predictions

Abstract It is impossible to overstate the value of process simulators in teaching process engineers about petrochemical, chemical, nuclear, and biological processes. Several chemical engineering topics, including process design, thermodynamics, process integration, separation processes, safety, and others, are made easier to teach because of this. Only a handful of these process simulators are freeware, while most are largely commercial. The ones that are commercialized are renowned for their friendliness, extensive media coverage, and international credibility attained for their forecasts in several industrial applications. However, schools in low-income countries may not be able to buy them. In contrast, the freeware publicity is not relatively low, less friendly, and cheaper than the commercial ones. This research compares the agreement of the forecast of commercial process simulators with freeware ones in an effort to strengthen institutions’ trust in the prediction of freeware process simulators. The analysis modeled and simulated a chemical process involving the Gibbs reactor, heater, compressor, and mixer in the COCO and Aspen HYSYS simulators. Findings from the research reveal good agreement in the predicted results obtained from the various process simulators. With the use of COCO, different possible methane oxidation routes were analyzed. The analysis confirmed that the route leading to the formation of CO2 and water would be less energetic than other routes. In addition, the formation of water would be much easier in the process than hydrogen at the condition employed in the study. Due to cost, the study recommends using the freeware process simulator instead of the cracked version, which is often utilized in educating process engineers and research projects in communities where research and education are poorly funded.