Hydrodynamics and flow regime transition study of trickle bed reactor at elevated temperature and pressure

Abstract

The hydrodynamics in a trickle bed reactor (TBR) in non-ambient conditions are studied for air–water and air–acetone (pure organic liquid of low surface tension) systems. A flow map experiments for air–water and air–acetone systems are performed in a pilot plant reactor of 0.05 m i.d. and 1.25 m height. It has been demonstrated from the experimental results that the pressure drop tends to increase with increasing superficial gas and liquid velocity and reactor pressure, while it tends to decrease with increasing bed temperature. The results also show that the dynamic liquid holdup increases with increasing liquid velocity and decreases with increasing superficial gas velocity, reactor pressure and bed temperature. The dynamic liquid holdup and pressure drop values are obviously higher than those measured for air–water system at the same fluid fluxes, reactor pressure and bed temperature due to the surface tension effects. For higher reactor pressure and temperature, the trickle to pulse transition boundary shifts towered higher superficial velocities of both gas and liquid.