Comparison of two-phase upflow and downflow fixed bed reactors performance: Catalytic SO2 oxidation

Abstract

A time- and space-dependent model based on the piston-dispersion-exchange model for liquid flow was developed to analyze the performance of two-phase upflow and downflow fixed bed reactors and was applied to the catalytic SO2 oxidation. The hydrodynamic parameters were determined from residence time distribution measurements, using an imperfect pulse method for time-domain analysis of nonideal pulse tracer response. A transient diffusion model of the tracer in the porous particle coupled with the PDE model was used to interpret the obtained RTD curves. Gas-liquid mass transfer parameters were determined by a stationary method based on the least square fit of the calculated concentration profiles in gas phase to the experimental values. It is shown that two-phase downflow fixed bed reactor performs better at low liquid flow rates, while two-phase upflow performs better at high liquid flow rates.