New Operating Modes of Production

Several new operating modes of production allow process intensification, although they have been mainly investigated at a laboratory and/or pilot stage. 

The more relevant for practical applications were the following according to Charpentier [7]  

The reactor consists of three zones - a catalyst bed between two beds of packing of heat-accumulating material. 

Under most operating conditions a RFR eventually converges to a symmetric single-period operation so that the concentrations and temperature profiles after one flow reversal are a mirror image of those after the previous flow reversal. However, a cooled RFR may attain, under certain conditions, states with more complex periodicity, that is, states with period w 1, nonsymmetric states and even complex quasi-periodic and chaotic states. 

There are other possible unsteady (periodic) operation modes for a packed bed reactor that could lead to process intensification [57]. Indeed, there are several unsteady state strategies available to run a process unit such as a reactor. Pulses of different magnitude can be imposed on an input, or the input could be either changed progressively or varied according to an analytical function. However, not all unsteady state strategies are feasible in a commercial situation. Table 3.2 gives examples of the possibilities. 

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