Trickle Bed Reactor

BY
Gowri T (15chr031)
Harish R (15chr038)
Jeevashankar S (15chr042)
Introduction
• In trickled bed reactor gaseous and liquid reactants flow co-currently
downward over a packed bed of solid catalyst particles.
• The liquid is distributed across the reactor cross section by a
distributor plate.
• The gas enters at the top and distributed along with the liquid. The
liquid flows downward by gravity and drag of the gas.
• For low liquid flow rates and low to moderate gas flow rates, the gas
phase is continuous with liquid trickling down forming film over the
solid catalyst.
Comparison Among Reactors
• The catalytic reaction can also be carried out in two–phase or three –
phase stirred tank reactors also known as slurry reactors.
• In three –phase slurry reactor the gaseous reactant and solid catalysts
are dispersed in continuous liquid phase by mechanical agitation
using stirrer.
• Trickle-beds, which are packed-beds of catalyst with cocurrent flow of
liquid and gas reactants, represent an important class of three-phase
reactors.
Comparison with Slurry Reactor
• A high heat capacity to provide good temperature control .
• A potentially high rate of reaction per unit volume of reactor if the
catalyst is highly active .
• Easy heat recovery.
• Adaptability to either batch or flow processing.
• The catalyst may be readily removed and replaced if its working life is
relatively short.
Basic Configurations
• Conventional Trickle bed
• Semi-Structured Trickle bed
• Micro-Trickle bed
Flow Regimes
• Trickle flow regime ( low gas & liquid flow)
• Pulse flow regime ( moderate flow)
• Spray flow regime ( high gas flow)
• Bubbly flow regime ( high Liquid flow)
Fundamentals
• Transport from the bulk gas phase to the gas-liquid interface.
• Equilibrium at the gas-liquid interface.
• Transport from the interface to bulk liquid.
• Transport from the bulk liquid to external catalyst surface.
• Diffusion and reaction in the pellet.
• Transport of B from bulk liquid to solid catalyst interface.
• Diffusion and reaction of B inside the catalyst pellet.
Trickle Bed Reactor
Pressure Drop
• Reactor column diameter (D) has relatively lower influence on
pressure drop as compared to the particle diameter (dp).
• This influence is more significant for low D/dp ratio (D/dp < 0.23).
• For high D/dp ratio, variation of pressure drop with column diameter
is almost negligible.
• For low D/dp ratio, variation of porosity near the wall plays an
important role. Due to high porosity near wall,fluid bypassing occurs,
resulting in a lower pressure drop
Pressure Drop
• Correlation of Kan and Greenfield for pressure drop is

• where ƸB is the bed porosity, Re, the Reynolds number based on

particle and We is the Weber number.
• The above equation is valid for trickle flow and pulse flow regimes.
Liquid Holdup
• It was expressed in two ways
(i) Total liquid holdup (ƸL) defined as volume of liquid per unit bed
volume
(ii) Liquid saturation (BL) defined as volume of liquid per unit void
volume instead of unit bed volume.
• Liquid holdup varies with (1) reactor hardware such as column
diameter, particle size and shape, and internals (2) operating
parameters such as gas and liquid flow rates and (3) physico-chemical
properties of fluids.
Liquid Holdup
• Lockharte-Martinelli generalized correlation for liquid hold up.
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