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Trickle‐bed reactors: An experimental study of partial wetting effect
Author(s) -
Ring Zbigniew E.,
Missen Ronald W.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.690351108
Subject(s) - wetting , trickle bed reactor , hydrodesulfurization , dibenzothiophene , catalysis , chemistry , kinetics , solubility , thermodynamics , chemical engineering , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , chromatography , organic chemistry , physics , engineering , quantum mechanics
The effect of partial external wetting of catalyst particles on conversion for hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene in a white oil was studied in a 25‐mm trickle‐bed reactor at 10 MPa and 330–370°C with Mo/SiO 2 catalyst. The superficial liquid velocity ( L m ) was varied from 0.092 to 0.557 kg · m −2 · s −1 . Measurements of conversion were augmented by tracer, kinetics and solubility experiments. The objectives were to determine the parameters of a reactor model based on the multizone external wetting (MZEW) model for the overall effectiveness factor, η o , and to compare the measured and predicted values of η o . As the wetting efficiency, f , increases, η o also increases, but, even at the highest L m , catalyst wetting was not complete and consequently η o was lower than the value corresponding to f = 1. The MZEW model describes the experimental data better than the simpler two‐zone model, based on a particular interpretation of f . The difference between the two models can be as high as 200%.