Performance Testing of Hydrodesulfurization Catalysts Using a Single‐Pellet‐String Reactor

Abstract

Dedicated to Professor Rüdiger Lange on the occasion of his 65th birthday Small-scale parallel trickle-bed reactors were used to evaluate the performance of a commercial hydrodesulfurization catalyst under industrially relevant conditions. Catalyst extrudates were loaded as a single string in reactor tubes. It is demonstrated that product sulfur levels and densities obtained with the single-pelletstring reactor are close to the results obtained in a bench-scale fixed-bed reactor operated under the same conditions. Moreover, parallel single-pellet-string reactors show high reproducibility. To study the hydrodynamic effects of the catalystbed packing, the catalyst-bed length was varied by loading different amounts of catalysts, and crushed catalyst was also loaded.

Experimental methods in chemical engineering: High throughput catalyst testing — HTCT

“…[ 20 ] Despite this low ratio, SPSRs' mass transfer performance for gas/solid and gas/liquid/solid reactions is good. [ 20,29,30 ] In addition, in the case of gas/liquid flow, a Taylor flow pattern develops, which might account for the unexpected improvement of heat transfer properties. [ 20 ]…”

“…Avantium N.V. has developed a line of HTCT systems called Flowrence that are built following a general principle but are adaptable to meet the particular needs of each application. [ 30,38,39 ] A 16‐reactor Flowrence unit (Figure 4), for example, has a common diluent gas section and a separate common mixed feed gas manifold. The gases feed to 16 inlet tubes together with a liquid injected through a single manifold.…”

“…The reactors are located in heating blocks to maintain a uniform temperature distribution along the catalytic bed and a preheating zone to condition the feed to a set temperature. [ 16,30,35 ] Each heating block has individual temperature controllers that operate up to 950 ∘ C (Figure 4). The blocks also work as heat sinks; they either provide heat or remove it to facilitate isothermal operation.…”

“…The collected liquid samples are sent to off‐line analysis for data matching with the gas phase analysis (Figure 4). [ 30,35 ]…”

Closed-Loop Model-Based Design of Experiments for Kinetic Model Discrimination and Parameter Estimation: Benzoic Acid Esterification on a Heterogeneous Catalyst

“…String reactors (bead strings or pellet strings etc.) i) provide plug flow behaviour with negligible bypass or axial dispersion 58 , ii) possess efficient heat transfer due to the large surface area to volume ratio 58 , iii) allow the use of similar superficial velocities to those that are used in industrial scale reactors [58][59][60][61] iv) increased reproducibility between reactors as packing is always uniform 58,59 v) ease of scale-up through parallelisation 62 and vi) they use industrial sized catalyst pellets instead of smaller particles or powders, hence allowing the study of any catalyst pellet skin effects 63 In order to confirm that the reactor behaved as a plug flow reactor, a step change Residence Time Distribution (RTD) study was conducted at four different flowrates in the area of interest for the kinetic study, (10, 20, 40 and 80 µL/min). This RTD study is shown in the Supporting Information, and confirmed that the reactor could be reasonably modelled as a plug flow reactor as the vessel dispersion numbers ranged from 0.01-0.02.…”