Abstract
Propylene glycol, also known as 1,2 propanediol, is one of the most important chemicals in the industry. It is a water-soluble liquid, considered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as safe to manufacture consumer products, including foodstuffs, medicines, and cosmetics. This chemical has essential properties, such as solvent, moisturizer, or antifreeze, in addition to a low level of toxicity. This paper aims to present the selection, simulation, and dimensioning of a trickle bed reactor at a laboratory scale. The sizing was validated with other authors. Two predictive models have been considered for reactor modeling, intrinsic kinetics and coupled intrinsic kinetics, along with mass transfer equations and the wetting of the catalyst particles. The model was implemented using Aspen Custom Modeler® (20 Crosby Dr. Bedford, MA 01730, EE. UU.) to study the reactor behavior in terms of conversion. The results show the profiles of different variables throughout the reactor and present higher glycerol conversion when mass transfer is added to the model.
Highlights
Glycerol is a valuable component obtained from renewable sources
That is to say that the efficiency obtained at the microlaboratory reactor level will be different from that which would be obtained in the trickle bed reactor at laboratory scale and much more than what can be obtained in optimal conditions on an industrial scale
The reactor behavior was studied considering two different models, a kinetically driven reactor model and a mass transfer driven reactor model. The comparison between both models showed the importance of interfacial and intraparticle transport phenomena in trickle bed reactors, showing that, the hydrogen is theoretically in excess, the amount that reaches the catalyst through the aqueous phase is low, making the mass transport processes the dominating phenomenon
Summary
Glycerol is a valuable component obtained from renewable sources. It is considered a by-product in the production of biodiesel by transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats. To laboratory-scale, the investigations about glycerol conversion to propanediol are carried out in microreactors [4,5,6]. In those reactors, an intrinsic kinetic can only be obtained, which is useful on a theoretical scale but cannot be used for industrial process design due to the reactor’s complexity in terms of its hydrodynamic parameters. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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