Effect of solid propertices on the hydrodynamic flow behaviour in a slurry bubble column using ultra-fast electron beam X-ray tomography


Effect of solid propertices on the hydrodynamic flow behaviour in a slurry bubble column using ultra-fast electron beam X-ray tomography

Rabha, S.; Schubert, M.; Wagner, M.; Lucas, D.; Hampel, U.

Slurry bubble column (SBC) reactors find a wide range of application in the chemical process industries. Most important applications of SBC reactors are catalytic hydrogenation of oil, methanol synthesis, Fischer Trospch process, etc. (Shah, 1979; etc.). The size, density and concentration of the solid catalyst particles play an important role in the performance of the SBC reactors, e.g. large particles lead to poor mass transfer whereas smaller particles can be entrained in the product stream or agglomerate into a large cluster. Therefore, optimum particle size is very important to achieve high transfer rates and to minimize effort for catalyst exchange or product-fines separation. Only few literature is available which shows the effect of particle properties like size and density on gas hold-up in SBCs (Kato et al.1972; Kim et al. 1987; etc.). Also, the solid concentration changes the hydrodynamic parameters significantly in SBC reactors (Krishna et al., 1997; Pandit and Joshi, 1986; etc.), which need to be investigated systematically. In the present work, the effects of particle size (50 μm ≤ dP ≤ 150 μm) and solid concentration (0.01 ≤ Cs ≤ 0.2) on the flow behaviour (e.g. gas holdup and bubble size distribution) in a SBC at different superficial gas velocities (0.02 ≤ UG ≤ 0.05 m/s) were investigated.

Keywords: Slurry bubble column; particle size; bubble size distribution; gas hold-up; tomography

  • Lecture (Conference)
    11th International Conference on Gas-Liquid & Gas-Liquid-Solid Reactor Engineering, 18.-23.08.2013, Seoul, Korea

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-17631
Publ.-Id: 17631