Hydrodynamic Performance Of Catalytic Distillation Packing

Catalytic distillation is an important process which combines catalytic reactionand distillation into one column simultaneously. The technology has been widelyapplied for the advantage of energy saving, lower operation costs, higher yield andselectivity of reversible reactions. As catalytic distillation packing has been one of themost important key of catalytic distillation technology, the packing structure ofcatalyst will directly affect the operation process and the coupling effect. On the basisof former research, a novel seepage catalytic distillation packing for liquid reactionhas been developed.In this work, hydrodynamic performance of the novel catalyst packing and effectof structure factors were measured in a catalytic distillation column with an internaldiameter of206mm.Three different gas phase flow area fraction of the catalyticdistillation packings were designed, and by changing structure factors such as thecatalyst loading amount and gas-liquid temperature, pressure drop,flooding point andliquid holdup of each packing were determined. The results show that:(1) In the case of certain temperature, the pressure drop with or without sprayand flooding point increase as the gas channel area decreases.When the catalystloading amount increases, the unit height of bed pressure drop increases slightly butnot obvious. In the case of heated liquid,the resin catalysts became so swelling thatthe voidage of catalyst bed reduced. Then the pressure drop increased and floodingpoint decreased.(2) The liquid holdup of catalyst bed increased as the voidage of the novelcatalyst packing decreased. When the catalyst loading amount increased, the seepagerate of liquid in the catalyst bed declined and liquid holdup increased.(3) And correlations for the pressure drop and liquid holdup in the catalyst bedand flooding point were obtained by fitting the experimental data and the maximumerrors are under±6.4%, which can be reference to the design of engineering. Furthermore, correlations of regression coefficient and the gas phase flow area fraction areavailable which can predict corresponding hydrodynamic parameters with any otherphase flow area fraction.