Development of a new gas/liquid distributor for catalytic reactor operated in upwardgas/liquid flow

摘要

Catalytic fixed bed reactors operated in gas/liquid upward flow mode are encountered forrnhydrogenation processes in finishing steps. To reach high selectivity for olefin production,rna very low amount of hydrogen has to be correctly distributed all over the catalytic bedrncross section. Since classical gas spargers are not efficient enough to distribute suchrnsmall amounts of hydrogen over a large bed diameter, a new distribution system has beenrndeveloped. Sparger operating range being too limited, a completely new approach wasrnfollowed to design a new distributing tray. The different development tools used arerndescribed and commented in this paper. The development is based on experimental datarnand CFD simulations results that are commented. Finally a first industrial application of therndeveloped distribution tray, implemented on an industrial reactor in 2005, is presented.rnThe performance of this new system, estimated from temperature profiles, is compared tornthose of the former one.