Monolithic Honeycombs in Loop Reactor Configuration for Intensification of Multiphase Processes

Abstract

Monolithic honeycomb reactors are characterized by small parallel channels, which make them an interesting approach to be applied as microstructured reactors. Besides the established manufacturing of ceramic honeycombs, these structures exhibit excellent mass transfer characteristics for multiphase reactions combined with degrees of freedom in the structural design. The potential of monolithic honeycomb reactors operated in the beneficial slug flow regime is evaluated for heterogeneously catalyzed gas‐liquid reactions. Results of the Fischer‐Tropsch synthesis and hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol were analyzed in order to obtain a more generalized picture of the interaction between mass transfer and reaction in small channels operated in multiphase flow.

Process Intensification of n‐Butane Oxidation to Maleic Anhydride in a Millistructured Reactor

“…Due to the larger amount of catalyst in the 3‐mm slit ( y cat = 0.185), reactor productivities are significantly higher, with values from 85 kg Prod m R −3 h −1 at 1.4 vol % n ‐butane to about 300 kg Prod m R −3 h −1 at 4.5 vol % n ‐butane. It has been calculated that industrial‐scale multitubular reactors with similar catalyst inventories of y cat = 0.15, which are restricted to an n ‐butane concentration of 2.0 vol % and a reactor inlet temperature of 400 °C, should have considerably lower reactor productivities in the order of 10 kg m R −3 h −1 . It should be noted that the underlying assumptions, especially the catalyst properties, are not identical.…”

“…Thus, the reactor volume V R comprises the reactor size based on a unit cell, according to , , including the channel for the catalyst and the channel for the heat transfer medium. The obtained values for y cat are summarized in Tab.…”

“…Ge et al performed experiments for the partial oxidation of toluene to benzaldehyde and benzoic acid and showed that the productivity could be doubled by using microreactors instead of fixed‐bed reactors. Güttel and Turek demonstrated, through numerical simulations of the partial oxidation of n ‐butane to MA, that the reactor productivity of millistructured fixed‐bed reactors was up to seven times higher than that in conventional multitubular reactors.…”

Development of a Robust Fixed‐Bed Reactor Model for Supercritical Citral Hydrogenation

“…Numerical models can be excellent tools for investigating the complex mechanisms of multiphase reactors. Two types of models can be distinguished: complex multidimensional models, which are needed to derive a detailed process understanding, as often applied in academic studies (e.g., Russo et al or Güttel and Turek ), and simple models, which are easy to handle and solve. These models are more suitable for process evaluation and design in industrial applications.…”

Comparison of Fischer-Tropsch Fixed and Monolith Bed Reactors Using Pseudo-homogeneous 2D Model

“…They considered both 1D and 2D, pseudo-homogeneous models to study the performance of these reactors. Guttel and Turek 28) compared different reactor types including fixed bed, slurry, monolithic, and microreactors. They proposed a 1D approach, including all mass transfer resistances for cobalt catalyst, and discussed that new reactors, monolith and microreactors, decrease the mass transfer resistance.…”