Performance of slurry and trickle‐bed reactors: Application to sulfur dioxide removal

Abstract

Methods are developed for predicting the performance of different types of three‐phase reactors for removal of a gaseous reactant by catalytic reaction. The removal is assumed to occur by mass transport of reactant from gas‐to‐liquid and liquid‐to‐catalyst particle and then by intraparticle diffusion and reaction in the liquid filled pores. The method is applied to the oxidation of sulfur dioxide at 25°C and 1 atm using activated carbon, in the presence of water, as a catalyst. Slurry, trickle‐bed, and counterflow packed‐bed reactors are compared in terms of the key variables affecting the fraction of sulfur dioxide reacted.

Applications and Recent Developments

“…Oxidation (liquid phase) reactions with solid catalysts have important applications using trickle bed reactors, some examples of which are SO 2 oxidation to SO 3 for sulfuric acid manufacture and SO 2 removal as a pollutant (Goto & Smith, 1978), wastewater treatment to remove traces of organic pollutants, and oxidation of aqueous organic pollutants from industrial wastes (pollution control). Several studies in oxidation using model reactions like oxidation of aqueous formic acid (Goto & Smith, 1975) and acetic acid (Levec & Smith, 1976) have been reported to illustrate modeling of trickle bed reactors.…”

A novel carbon-based process for flue gas cleanup

“…Research on SO2 adsorption and oxidation in a trickle-bedhas continued since the Hartman-Coughlinwork in the early 1970s. These include papers by Ma_ and Smith (7), Goto and Smith (8), Pavko and Levec (9), and Herskovitz (10). Although these investigators discuss the relevance of the work to flue-gas desulfurization,the main interest has been studying mass transfer and wetting in trickle-beds and development of theoretical models.…”

Oxidation of SO2 in a Trickle Bed Reactor Packed with Activated Carbon at Low Liquid Flow Rates

“…A trickle bed reactor (TBR) was used as a promising reactor for this type of reaction in many studies (Hartman and Coughlin, 1972; Komiyama and Smith, 1975; Goto and Smith, 1978; Mata and Smith, 1981;Stegasov et al, 1994). Consequently, the reaction has been studied as a potential means of flue gas desulfurization and a model reaction for investigating the performance and modeling of trickle beds.…”