Offshore Floating Packed‐Bed Reactors: Key Challenges and Potential Solutions

Abstract

Dedicated to Professor Rüdiger Lange on the occasion of his 65th birthdayThe influence of floating vessel motions on the hydrodynamic behavior of multiphase flows in porous media was studied using a hexapod ship motion emulator with an embarked packed column. The response of gas-liquid distribution, pressure drop, liquid saturation, and flow regime transition to column inclinations and roll motions was compared to those of the corresponding static vertical and inclined configurations. Two-phase flow patterns in terms of local liquid saturation distribution were visualized online by means of a capacitance wire-mesh sensor positioned firmly on the floating packed bed. The hydrodynamic performance of packed beds under roll motion deviates strongly from that of the static beds, indicating that the known characteristics of the conventional land-based tricklebed reactors cannot be transposed on a one-to-one basis for design and scale-up of the floating reactor configurations.

Reactor Selection for Upgrading Hemicelluloses: Conventional and Miniaturised Reactors for Hydrogenations

“…For general information, the interested reader may be referred to Al-Dahhan et al [65], Dudukovic et al [139], Iliuta et al [140], Ranade et al [122], whereas the forced cyclic operation was intensively discussed by Atta et al [141], Lange et al [142,143] and Schubert [144]. In the last few years, research on offshore installations [145][146][147] and rotating beds [148][149][150] has also appeared.…”

110th Anniversary: Marinization of Multiphase Reactors through the Prism of Chemical Engineers

“…(a) Liquid saturation time series in the wall regions RI and RII of the same bed cross section for 20 s period rolling bed and 15°-tilted static column along with 15°-amplitude sine wave for the hexapod roll motion; (b) 2D WMS images of the bed cross-sectional area in different angular positions (U g = 0.190 m/s and U l = 0.005 m/s) for a trickle bed reactor. Adapted with permission from ref . Copyright 2017 John Wiley and Sons.…”

Liquid Flow Visualization in Packed‐Bed Multiphase Reactors: Wire‐Mesh Sensor Design and Data Analysis for Rotating Fixed Beds

“…Additionally, extensive work has been conducted in the recent years to study the effect of sea conditions on the hydrodynamics of floating trickle‐beds, such as reactors embarked on floating platforms or ships. Here, the packed bed with embedded capacitance WMSs were installed on a swell simulator and six‐degree‐of‐freedom motions were applied to emulate the behavior of floating packed beds of random particles and solid foams . In particular, the dynamic response of gas‐liquid distribution pattern, liquid saturation, flow regime transition and pulse flow properties to translational (surge, sway, heave) and rotational (roll, pitch, yaw) motions were visualized and compared to those of the corresponding static vertical and inclined configurations.…”