The prewetting of a trickle-bed reactor has important implications in the design and operation of these reactors. This is because the prewetting changes the flow morphology (shape and texture) of the liquid flowing through the bed and leads to the existence of multiple hydrodynamic states. The extent of this change in flow morphology can be seen in the effect the prewetting of the reactor has on the pressure drop, liquid holdup and gas-liquid mass transfer. The following prewetting procedures were used: -- Levec-wetted: the bed is flooded and drained and after residual holdup stabilisation the gas and liquid flow is reintroduced -- Kan-wetted: the bed is operated in the pulse flow regime and liquid and gas flow rates are reduced to the desired set point -- Super-wetted: the bed is flooded and gas and liquid flow are introduced once draining commences For the pressure drop: -- The different prewetting procedures resulted in two distinct regions (Upper region Kan and Super-wetted, Lower region Dry and Levec-wetted) -- There was no significant difference between the Dry and Levec-wetted beds -- The pressure drop in the Kan and Super-wetted beds can be as much as seven times greater than the pressure drop in the Dry and Levec-wetted beds For the liquid holdup: -- The different prewetting procedures resulted in four distinct regions (Kan-wetted, Super-wetted, Levec-wetted, Dry bed) -- The liquid holdup in the Kan-wetted bed can be as much as four times greater than the liquid holdup in the Dry bed -- The liquid holdup in the Levec-wetted can be as much as thirty percent lower than the liquid holdup in the Kan-wetted bed For the gas-liquid mass transfer: -- The different prewetting procedures resulted in three distinct regions (Kan and Super-wetted, Levec-wetted, Dry bed) -- The volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient in the Kan and Super-wetted beds can be as much as six times greater than the mass transfer coefficient in the Dry bed -- The volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient in the Kan and Super-wetted beds can be as much as two and a half times greater than the mass transfer coefficient in the Levec-wetted bed While an increase in the liquid flow rate results in an increase in the pressure drop, liquid holdup and gas-liquid mass transfer for all of the experiments, the effect of increasing gas flow on the measured variables were more pronounced for the prewetted beds. In a prewetted bed (Kan, Super and Levec-wetted) an increase in the gas flow rate causes an increase in the volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient and a decrease in the liquid holdup. The decrease in the liquid holdup is due to the fact that the increased gas flow rate causes the films around the particles to thin and spread out. In the dry bed the flow is predominantly in the form of rivulets and the increase in gas flow rate does not affect the liquid holdup. In the case of the volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient the increased gas flow rate causes an increase in the mass transfer coefficient regardless of the prewetting procedure. This increase is due to the effect that the gas flow rate has on the liquid holdup as well as the increase in the gas-liquid interfacial area due to the increased gas-liquid interaction. If the pulsing in the Kan-wetted bed is induced by increasing the gas flow rate and keeping the liquid flow rate constant the results are significantly different. The pressure drop in the gas-pulsing experiments was lower than the pressure drop in the recorded in the Kan and Super-wetted beds, but higher than the pressure drop in the dry and Levec-wetted beds. However, the liquid holdup in the gas-pulsing experiments was higher than the liquid holdup in any of the other beds. The volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient in the gas-pulsing experiments was lower than the mass transfer coefficients of the Kan and Super-wetted beds, but higher than the mass transfer coefficients in the dry and Levec-wetted beds. The multiple operating points obtained from the different prewetting procedures are by no means the only possible operating points. By simply decreasing the draining time in the Levec-wetted bed steady state operating points can be found between those of the Super and Levec-wetted beds. This alludes to the fact that the operating conditions determined from the different prewetting modes are only boundaries and that the actual operating point can lie anywhere between these boundaries. The existence of these multiple hydrodynamic states complicates things further when a correlation is developed to determine the pressure drop, liquid holdup or the volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient. No correlation tested was able to accurately predict the pressure drop, liquid holdup or volumetric gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient in the dry or prewetted beds. / Dissertation (MEng (Chemical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Chemical Engineering / unrestricted

Residence time distributions have become an important analytical tool in the analysis of many types of flow systems. Residence time distributions have proven to be effective for analysing trickle bed reactors, as it allows determination of parameters under operating conditions allowing no interference of these conditions. By studying the residence time distribution a great amount of information can be obtained and therefore used to determine a number of hydrodynamic parameters. Due to recent findings that prewetting has a tremendous effect on a number of hydrodynamic parameters such as holdup, wetting efficiency and pressure drop, it is therefore the aim of this study to investigate the effect of trickle flow morphology or prewetting on a trickle bed reactor. The residence time distribution is obtained whereby hydrodynamic parameters are determined and therefore the effect the flow morphology has on various hydrodynamic parameters is highlighted. A number of methods were used to determine these parameters, namely that of the best-fit method, whereby the PDE model was used, and the method of moments. Operating conditions included varying gas and liquid flow rates for porous and non-porous catalyst particles at atmospheric pressure. The different prewetting procedures used during this work included the following: <ul><li>Non-wetted </li> <li>Levec-wetted </li> <li>Super-wetted</li></ul> From this investigation the following conclusions were made: <li>Prewetting has a great effect on the hydrodynamic parameters of trickle bed reactors</li> <li>The differences in prewetting can be attributed to differing flow morphologies for the different prewetted beds i.e. the dominant flow morphology for a non-wetted bed is that of rivulets and for prewetted beds that of film flow</li> <li>It was also found that at low liquid flow rates the flow morphology in prewetted beds changes from film flow to a combination of rivulet and film flow</li> <li>The different flow morphologies for prewetted and non prewetted beds was confirmed by the residence time distributions and various parameters obtained there from</li> <li>At low liquid flow rates the flow morphology becomes a more predominant factor in creating the tailing effect present in residence time distribution for prewetted beds</li> <li>The tailing effect in residence time distributions is a result of both internal diffusion and liquid flow morphology, where the liquid flow morphology is the more dominant factor</li> <li>The use of residence time distributions to determine a number of hydrodynamic parameters proved to be very useful and accurate by means of different methods, i.e. method of moments and best-fit method</li> <li>Differences in the liquid holdup determined from the method of moments and the weighing method confirmed that different flow morphologies exist for different prewetted beds</li> <li>An increase in the dispersion coefficient with prewetting was observed indicating that the amount of micro mixing is different for the different prewetted beds</li> <li>Differences in residence times and high values for the dynamic holdup, for the porous packing, confirmed that the PDE model does not model well the porous packing response curves due to the lack of internal diffusion and internal holdup in this model</li> <li>The dynamic-static mass transfer showed that film flow, as in prewetted beds, results in slower mass transfer as opposed to rivulet flow and therefore it is concluded that prewetting results in different flow morphologies.</li></ul> Following this study it is recommended that a residence time distribution model be used or developed that incorporates the effects of internal diffusion and internal holdup as present in porous catalyst particles. In addition, it was found that very few correlations could accurately predict hydrodynamic parameters due to the absence of the effect of prewetting and therefore it is recommended that correlations be developed that incorporate the effect of prewetting. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Chemical Engineering / unrestricted