Modeling of a Slurry Bubble Column Reactor Using a Two-Phase Two-Bubble Class Approach—A Hydrodynamics Study

Abstract

The slurry bubble column reactor (SBCR) is of particular interest in Fischer–Tropsch (FT) reactor modeling because of its importance to gas-to-liquids processes and the technical challenges it poses. Being one of the more important and complex FTS systems in use today, the current knowledge and understanding of the SBCR at a fundamental level, the hydrodynamics in particular, has to improve in order to improve its efficiency. Accordingly, a mathematical model of a SBCR has been developed in this work. The model is based on mass balances into which hydrodynamic, mass transfer, and kinetic parameters have been incorporated. The hydrodynamic model considers two distinct phases in the SBCR, namely the gas and slurry phases with the liquid and solid treated as a single pseudohomogenous phase. The gas phase in the reactor was assumed to exist in the form of distinctly large and small bubbles with each bubble class moving predominantly upward through the center of the reactor and down near the wall, respectively...