Chemical Engineering and Processing, Vol.125, 234-245, 2018
Hydrodynamics and mass transfer in multiphase monolithic reactors with different distributors: distributors: An experimental and modeling study
This work focuses on the hydrodynamic and mass transfer performances in multiphase monolithic reactor with different distributors by the combination of experiments and CFD simulation. The experimental results showed that the pressure drop in the monolithic bed with packed bed distributor is lower than that with other distributors, and that the liquid holdup follows the trend of packed bed distributor > foam distributor > porcelain ring distributor. Moreover, the gas-liquid mass transfer coefficients increase with the increase of superficial velocities of both gas and liquid phases, and mainly depend on the superficial liquid velocity. The CFD simulation showed that the gas-liquid phase distribution is mainly dependent on the superficial velocity of liquid phase, and the changes of superficial gas velocity don't have an obvious effect on the gas-liquid phase distribution. Furthermore, the experimental and simulated results showed that the mass transfer coefficients in the monolithic bed with packed bed distributor is much higher than those with foam distributor and porcelain ring distributor.
Keywords:Liquid holdup;Pressure drop;Mass transfer;Gas-liquid phase distribution;CFD simulation;Distributor