Three‐Phase Trickle‐Bed Reactors

Abstract

This chapter reviews the art and science involved in understanding the multiscale multiphase phenomena that affect the performance of trickle bed reactors. Their application areas, the traditional approach to their design and scaleup, and some commonly encountered problems in practice are discussed. The foundations for rational scaleup are introduced. The recent attempts to develop a multiscale science‐based approach to scale up and design of these reactors is summarized at the end. The article contains sections titled: 1. Introduction 2. Design 2.1. Flow Regimes 2.2. Flow Distribution 2.3. Pressure Drop 2.4. Liquid Holdup 2.5. Catalyst Wetting and Liquid–Solid Contacting 2.6. Residence Time Distributions 2.7. Heat Transfer and Thermal Stability 3. Modeling and Analysis 3.1. Reactor Models 3.2. Hydrodynamic and Computational Fluid Dynamic Models 3.3. CFD Models of Trickle Beds 4. Trickle‐bed Reactor Scaleup 5. Reactor Troubleshooting 6. Acknowledgment References

CFD study and experimental validation of multiphase packed bed hydrodynamics in the context of Rolling Sea conditions

“…For the sake of resolving the local fluid distributions and velocity fields in packed beds, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as a promising numerical tool is being extensively used in the field of multiphase flow reactors . A validated CFD‐based packed‐bed model can track local distributions of fluid through the bed besides evaluating the influence of operating conditions and reactor geometry . The Eulerian multi‐fluid framework has been widely used for CFD simulation of multiphase flow in packed beds.…”

Hydrodynamics of inclined packed beds under flow modulation ‐ CFD simulation and experimental validation

“…Several researchers successfully applied the Eulerian multifluid CFD model along with well‐established interphase interaction forces as closure laws to predict bed overall pressure drop and liquid holdup in conventional vertical gas‐liquid cocurrent downflow packed beds (i.e., trickle‐bed reactors) under steady‐state (i.e., iso‐flow) and unsteady‐state cyclic operation . Hamidipour et al were able to precisely capture the transient hydrodynamic behaviors of trickle‐bed reactors under gas, liquid, and gas/liquid alternating cyclic operations using an unsteady multifluid Euler framework combined with the closure laws developed by Attou et al for fluid‐solid drag forces and fluid‐fluid interaction force.…”