Hydrodynamic studies in trickle bed reactors using wire mesh sensors

Multiphase flows exist in many commercial areas such as the manufacture of petroleum-based products and fuels, the production of commodity and specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, production of polymers and pollution abatement. The trickle bed reactor (TBR) with a random packing operated in gas-liquid co-current downflow mode is the most widely used multiphase reactor in the chemical, biochemical and waste treatment industry.
There are several advantages of the downflow operation mode, including a wide operating range for gas/liquid flow rates, high capacities as well as high efficiencies. However, due to improper initial gas/liquid distributors, external bed porosity variations, wall effects, partial catalyst wetting and surface tension related effects, intricate problems arise which amongst others are non-uniformities in liquid distribution, liquid velocity and liquid holdup and their dynamics.
A new capacitance wire-mesh sensor for flow imaging is presented which succeeded in overcoming previous difficulties such as applicability for organic liquid flows in porous particle packings, velocity measurements, acquisition time etc. to explore dynamic hydrodynamic features in trickle bed reactors.