Process intensification of catalytic hydrogenation of ethylanthraquinone with gas‐liquid microdispersion

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, to miniaturize the hydrogenation reactor and make the H2O2 production with more safety a gas‐liquid microdispersion system was generated to intensify the process of catalytic hydrogenation of ethylanthraquinone by passing the gas‐liquid microdispersion system through a generally packed bed reactor. A microdispersion device with a 5 μm pore size microfiltration membrane as the dispersion medium has been developed and microbubbles in the size of 10–100 μm were successfully generated. The reaction and mass transfer performance was evaluated. The conversion of ethylanthraquinone as much as 35% was realized in less than 3.5 s. The overall volume mass transfer coefficient in the microdispersion reaction system reached in the range of 1–21 s−1, more than two orders of magnitude larger than the values in normal gas‐liquid trickle‐bed reactors. A mathematical model in the form of Sh = 2.0 + 54.7Sc1/3We1/2ϕ1/10 has been firstly suggested, which can well predict the overall mass transfer coefficient. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012