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The cocurrent downflow contactor–a novel reactor for gas‐liquid‐solid catalysed reactions
Author(s) -
Boyes Adrian P.,
Raymahasay Sugat,
Tilston Mike W.,
Lu Xia X.,
Sarmento Sandra,
Chugtai Arshad,
Winterbottom John M.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.270170504
Subject(s) - contactor , chemistry , chemical engineering , thermodynamics , chromatography , physics , engineering , power (physics)
The Cocurrent Downflow Contactor (CDC) has been developed as a mass transfer and reactor device, with and without addition of tangential (swirl) flow, giving gas hold‐up ( E g ) values of 0.5–0.75, interfacial areas in the range 1000–6000 m 2 m −3 liquid and k L a values in the range of 0.15–1.55 s −1 for absorption using the O 2 /H 2 O system. It has been studied as a catalytic slurry reactor for the hydrogenation of (i) itaconic acid and (ii) triglycerides catalysed by Pd and Ni catalysts. The reactions were observed to be largely surface‐reaction rate controlled, due to the very efficient mass transfer ( k L a up to 11.75 s −1 under reaction conditions) and application of swirl flow‐enhanced reaction rates. The CDC has recently been found to be capable of operating as a fixed bed reactor, thus eliminating a downstream catalyst separation problem (therefore more cost effective), and is superior in its mass transfer characteristics to other known devices. Scale‐up can be undertaken without loss of performance efficiency.