EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF A COMPLEX CATALYTIC REACTION NETWORK IN A TRICKLE-BED REACTOR

Abstract

In the present report a relatively complex reaction system including several side reactions to the desired main reaction has been studied in a trickle-bed reactor. In addition the experimental part—which showed very good reproducibility of the results—an attempt to a reasonable modelling of the reactor was tried. The starting point was the differential equation system describing the kinetics of the reactions as well as the corresponding kinetic parameters, which had been established earlier in a slurry-reactor. It was possible to demonstrate that the behaviour of a trickle-bed reactor can be simulated by a relatively simple approach containing the basic kinetic equations, the wetting efficiency of the catalyst particles and a one-dimensional, pseudohomogeneous reactor model, the cell model. The so calculated concentration curves of the different reactants and products fitted the experimental values very closely. For those reasons, and especially for the reasonable effort needed for very satisfactory modeling, the results and proceeding steps outlined here might be of particular interest for further applications of trickle-bed reactors.

KEYWORDS:

• Trickle-bed reactors
• Reactor modeling
• Parameter estimation
• Design

Notes

†Submitted for publication by J. J. Ulbrecht.