Controlled Picard Method for Solving Nonlinear Fractional Reaction–Diffusion Models in Porous Catalysts

This paper discusses the diffusion and reaction behaviors of catalyst pellets in the fractional-order domain as well as the case of nth-order reactions. Two generic models are studied to calculate the concentration of reactant in a porous catalyst in the case of a spherical geometric pellet and a flat-plate particle with different examples. A controlled Picard analytical method is introduced to obtain an approximated solution for these systems in both linear and nonlinear cases. This method can cover a wider range of problems due to the extra auxiliary parameter, which enhances the convergence and is suitable for higher-order differential equations. Moreover, the exact solution in the linear fractional-order system is obtained using the Mittag–Leffler function where the conventional solution is a special case. For nonlinear models, the proposed method gives matched responses with the homotopy analysis method (HAM) solutions for different fractional orders. The effect of fractional-order parameter on the dimensionless concentration of the reactant in a porous catalyst is analyzed graphically for different cases of order reactions and Thiele moduli. Moreover, the proposed method has been applied numerically for different cases to predict and calculate the dual solutions of a nonlinear fractional model when the reaction order n = −1. © 2017, Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.