Flowdynamic Modeling of Bale‐Type Catalytic Distillation Packings

Abstract

A model was developed to predict the flowdynamic behavior of bale‐type catalytic packings, which are widely used in the industry for several applications. The new model takes into account the effect of the catalyst properties and packing characteristics as well as the properties of the fluids, flow rates, and column diameter to predict liquid hold‐up, pressure drop, and the loading and flooding points. The particle model concepts were used as the basis for the generation of the model, introducing considerations that account for a proper representation of a wide variety of data obtained in tests performed in this work or reported previously in the literature. It was found that the nature of the catalyst contained in the “bales” strongly affects the liquid hold‐up due to solid–liquid interactions. A factor was also introduced in the model to account for the strong effect of the wall on small‐diameter columns. The new model significantly improved the prediction of the flowdynamic parameters such as hold‐up and pressure drop as well as loading and flooding points, which showed deviations smaller than 10–30%.