Interfacial area, reactor types

Flow Reactors Fast reactions and those in the gas phase are generally done in tubular flow reaclors, just as they are often done on the commercial scale. Some heterogeneous reactors are shown in Fig. 23-29 the item in Fig. 23-29g is suited to liquid/liquid as well as gas/liquid. Stirred tanks, bubble and packed towers, and other commercial types are also used. The operadon of such units can sometimes be predicted from independent data of chemical and mass transfer rates, correlations of interfacial areas, droplet sizes, and other data. 

Calculate mass transfer coefficient in a 60 m3 fermenter with a gas and liquid interfacial area of a = 0.3 m2-m 3, given pbroth = 1200kg m-3. The small reactor has working volume of 0.18m3, 1 vvm aeration rate. Oxygen transfer rate (OTR) is 0.25kmol in 3 h 3. There are two sets of impellers, and flat-blade turbine types of impeller were used, HL= 1.2/),. Find the exact specifications of a large fermenter. 

Fig. 5.4-15. Interfacial area versus power dissipation density for various reactor types P = power Fv.a = gas flow rate (adapted from Carra and Morbidelli, 1987).

Laboratory reactors for studying gas-liquid processes can be classified as (1) reactors for which the hydrodynamics is well known or can easily be determined, i.e. reactors for which the interfacial area, a, and mass-transfer coefficients, ki and kc, are known (e.g. the laminar jet reactor, wetted wall-column, and rotating drum, see Fig. 5.4-21), and (2) those with a well-defined interfacial area and ill-determined hydrodynamics (e.g. the stirred-cell reactor, see Fig. 5.4-22). Reactors of these two types can be successfully used for studying intrinsic kinetics of gas-liquid processes. They can also be used for studying liquid-liquid and liquid-solid processes. 

Table 24.1 gives typical values of gas-liquid interfacial area for various reactor types. In Table 24.1,... 

The other major type of catalytic reactor is a situation where the fluid and the catalyst are stirred instead of having the catalyst fixed in a bed. If the fluid is a liquid, we call this a slurry reactor, in which catalyst pellets or powder is held in a tank through which catalyst flows. The stirring must obviously be fast enough to mix the fluid and particles. To keep the particles from settling out, catalyst particle sizes in a slurry reactor must be sufficiently small. If the catalyst phase is another Hquid that is stirred to maintain high interfacial area for reaction at the interface, we call the reactor an emulsion reactor. These are shown in Figure 74. 

The main disadvantages of BSCR compared to MSSR are the rapid reduction in specific interfacial area with height for height/diameter ratios above 10 [6]. Other aspects of the two types of reactors are compared in Table 5.3-2. 

The importance of gas-liquid mass transfer on the reactor performance depends upon the nature of the reaction system and the flow conditions in the reactor. Two important parameters characterizing the gas-liquid mass transfer are the gas-liquid mass-transfer coefficient and the gas-liquid interfacial area. Both of these parameters depend on the flow conditions and the nature and status of the solid packing. The relationships between gas-liquid mass-transfer coefficients, gas-liquid interfacial area, and the system conditions for various types of reactors are described in Chaps. 6 through 9. 

Gas-liquid systems of particular interest to the chemical engineer are encountered in bubble columns, spray columns, air lift, falling film, and stirred tank reactors. Usually the form of these reactors corresponds to that of vessels or columns. From the perspective of the chemical engineer, who is concerned with the conversion and selectivity of chemical transformations, it is of utmost importance that an intensive contact between a gas and a liquid be achieved and therefore very often one phase is continuous whereas the other is disperse. Therefore, the interfacial area and the size of the disperse phase elements constitute very important aspects of CFD modeling of these types of systems. 

Two books deal almost exclusively with the subject of mass transfer with chemical reaction, the admirably clear expositions of Astarita (A6) and Danckwerts (D2). Since then a flood of theoretical and experimental work has been reported on gas absorption and related separations. The principal object of this chapter is to present techniques, results, and opinions published mainly during the last 6 or 7 years on mass-transfer coefficients and interfacial areas in most types of absorbers and reactors. This necessitates some review of mass transfer with and without chemical reaction in the first section, and comments about the simulation of industrial reactors by laboratory-scale apparatus in the concluding section. Although many gas-liquid reactions are accompanied by a rise in temperature that may be great enough to affect the rate of gas absorption, our attention here is confined to cases where the rise in temperature does not affect the absorption rate. This latter topic (treated by references B20, TIO, S3, T3, V5) could justify another complete chapter. 

The specific surface area of contact for mass transfer in a gas-liquid dispersion (or in any type of gas-liquid reactor) is defined as the interfacial area of all the bubbles or drops (or phase elements such as films or rivulets) within a volume element divided by the volume of the element. It is necessary to distinguish between the overall specific contact area S for the whole reactor with volume Vr and the local specific contact area 51 for a small volume element AVi- In practice AVi is directly determined by physical methods. The main difficulty in determining overall specific area from local specific areas is that Si varies strongly with the location of AVi in the reactor—a consequence of variations in local gas holdup and in the local Sauter mean diameter [Eq. (64)]. So there is a need for a direct determination of overall interfacial area, over the entire reactor, which is possible with use of the chemical technique. 

A suitable type of reactor has to be chosen prior to sizing. This is an economic problem, with competition between the value of the interfacial area and the energy expense required to create it. In such cases. Fig. 33 in Nagel ef al. (N4) provides a comparison between the extents of interfacial area provided by the major types of equipment and their energy costs. Once the choice is made, the remaining part of the design can be carried out as in case 2. 

Multiphase Reactors Reactions between gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, and gas-liquid-solid phases are often tested in CSTRs. Other laboratory types are suggested by the commercial units depicted in appropriate sketches in Sec. 19 and in Fig. 7-17 [Charpentier, Mass Transfer Rates in Gas-Liquid Absorbers and Reactors, in Drew et al. (eds.), Advances in Chemical Engineering, vol. 11, Academic Press, 1981]. Liquids can be reacted with gases of low solubilities in stirred vessels, with the liquid charged first and the gas fed continuously at the rate of reaction or dissolution. Some of these reactors are designed to have known interfacial areas. Most equipment for gas absorption without reaction is adaptable to absorption with reaction. The many types of equipment for liquid-liquid extraction also are adaptable to reactions of immiscible liquid phases. 

Process intensification is achieved by the superimposition of two or more processing fields (such as various types of flow, centrifugal, sonic, and electric fields), by operating at ultrahigh processing conditions (such as deformation rate and pressure), a combination of the two, or by providing selectivity or extended interfacial area or a capacity for transfer processes. In heat and mass transfer operations, drastic reduction in diffusion/conduction path results in equally impressive transfer rates. As the processing volume (such as reactor... 

Table 3.2 Specific interfacial areas of selected conventional and miniaturized reactor types. (Data from Ref. [40].)...

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