INTRODUCTION The conversion of synthesis gas to methanol is practiced commercially in gas phase fixed bed reactors over a Cu/Zn/Al,O1 catalyst. However, because of the highly exothermic nature of the synthesis reactions, heat dissipation has been a bottleneck in the reactor design and process configuration. Moreover, coalderived synthesis gas, having a low H,/CO ratio, is not suitable for use i...

Wall-to-bed (or wall-to-fluid) heat transfer issues in trickle bed reactors (TBR) has an important impact on operation and efficiency in this category of reactors. In this study, the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of trickle bed reactors was simulated by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. The multiphase behavior of trickle bed reactor was studied by the implementation of ...

Trickle bed reactors are governed by equations of flow in porous media such as Darcy’s law and the conservation of mass. Our numerical method for solving these equations is based on a total-velocity splitting, sequential formulation which leads to an implicit pressure equation and a semi-implicit mass conservation equation. We use high-resolution finite-difference methods to discretize these eq...

A concise review of relevant experimental observations and modeling of high-pressure tricklebed reactors, based on recent studies, is presented. The following topics are considered: flow regime transitions, pressure drop, liquid holdup, gas-liquid interfacial area and mass-transfer coefficient, catalyst wetting efficiency, catalyst dilution with inert fines, and evaluation of tricklebed models ...

Abstraet---A new development in the field of internals in packed columns is the use of structured packing types. Recently, a new structured packing type coated with a thin alumina layer (KATAPAK rM) has been developed, in this report, the results of an experimental and theoretical study concerning the possible applicability of this new packing material for hydrogenation processes in a trickle-b...

The hydrodynamic parameters were determined for two different three-phase systems (fluidized-bed and trickle-bed) through the experimental evaluation of the dynamic residence time distribution in the gas or liquid phase. For different fluid phase flow rates the fluidized-bed system was operated with a tracer in the gas phase and in the trickle-bed with a tracer in the liquid phase. The analysis...

The effective heat transfer parameters in a trickle bed reactor (gas-liquid co-current downflow through packed bed reactors), ker, the effective radial thermal conductivity of the bed, and hw, the effective wall-to-bed heat transfer coefficient are estimated for air-water system over a wide range of flow rates of air (0.01-0.898 kg/ms) and water (3.16-71.05 kg/ms) covering trickle, pulse, and d...