Operating cocurrent operation

Gas-liquid mixtures are sometimes reacted in packed beds. The gas and the liquid usually flow cocurrently. Such trickle-bed reactors have the advantage that residence times of the liquid are shorter than in countercurrent operation. This can be useful in avoiding unwanted side reactions. 

Fixed-bed reactors in the form of gas absorption equipment are used commonly for noncatalytic gas-liquid reactions. Here the packed bed serves only to give good contact between the gas and liquid. Both cocurrent and countercurrent operations are used. Countercurrent operation gives the highest reaction rates. Cocurrent operation is preferred if a short liquid residence time is required. 

Gas flow in these rotary dryers may be cocurrent or countercurrent. Cocurrent operation is preferred for heat-sensitive materials because gas and product leave at the same temperature. Countercurrent operation allows a product temperature higher than the exit gas temperature and dryer efficiency may be as high as 70%. Some dryers have enlarged cylinder sections at the material exit end to increase material holdup, reduce gas velocity, and minimize dusting. Indirectly heated tubes are installed in some dryers for additional heating capacity. To prevent dust and vapor escape at the cylinder seals, most rotary dryers operate at a negative internal pressure of 50—100 Pa (0.5—1.0 cm of water). 

Absorbers These have a two-phase flow system. The absorbing medium is put in film flow during its fall downward on the tubes as it is cooled by a coohng medium outside the tubes. The film absorbs the gas which is introduced into the tubes. This operation can be cocurrent or countercurrent. 

Rotating equipment, except brick-hned vessels, operated above ambient temperatures is usually insulated to reduce heat losses. Exceptions are direct-heat units of bare metal construction operating at high temperatures, on which heat losses from the shell are neces-saiy to prevent overheating of the metal. Insulation is particularly necessary on cocurrent direct-heat units. It is not unusual for product cooling or condensation on the shell to occur in the last 10 to 50 percent of the cylinder length if it is not well insulated. 

Typical operating data for cocurrent rotary dryers are given in Table 12-18. (Note that the driving force AT must be based on wet-bulb depression and not on material temperatures. Use of material temperatures, particrrlariy when the dry solids are superheated after drying, will yield conservative results.)... 

Orifice Mixing Column An orifice mixing column consists of a series of orifice plates contained in a pipe. The pipe normally is fabricated of two vertical legs connected by a return bend at the bottom with the orifice plates installed between flanges in the vertical legs. Typical use is for cocurrent contacting in caustic and water washing operations. 

By far the major portion of the available gas-absorption data have been obtained for countercurrent flow, which is the normal mode of operation for packed-bed absorbers. Special mention may be made of the results of Dodds et al. (D6), who examined mass transfer by the absorption of gas in liquid under cocurrent downward flow at flow rates higher than those corresponding to the flooding point for countercurrent operation. 

The results are of interest partly with respect to the design of certain types of trickle-flow operation and partly because they demonstrate that higher mass-transfer coefficients may be obtained for cocurrent than for countercurrent operation. 

Zabor et al. (Zl) have described studies of the catalytic hydration of propylene under such conditions (temperature 279°C, pressure 3675 psig) that both liquid and vapor phases are present in the packed catalyst bed. Conversions are reported for cocurrent upflow and cocurrent downflow, it being assumed in that paper that the former mode corresponds to bubble flow and the latter to trickle-flow conditions. Trickle flow resulted in the higher conversions, and conversion was influenced by changes in bed height (for unchanged space velocity), in contrast to the case for bubble-flow operation. The differences are assumed to be effects of mass transfer or liquid distribution. 

Schoenemann (S4) reported qualitatively that the liquid residence-time distribution for cocurrent upward bubble flow was narrower than that observed in trickle-flow operation. 

The expression gas-liquid fluidization, as defined in Section III,B,3, is used for operations in which momentum is transferred to suspended solid particles by cocurrent gas and liquid flow. It may be noted that the expression gas-liquid-solid fluidization has been used for bubble-column slurry reactors (K3) with zero net liquid flow (of the type described in Sections III,B,1 and 1II,V,C). The expression gas-liquid fluidization has also been used for dispersed gas-liquid systems with no solid particles present. 

Column reactors are the second most popular reactors in the fine chemistry sector. They are mainly dedicated reactors adjusted for a particular process although in many cases column reactors can easily be adapted for another process. Cocurrently operated bubble (possibly packed) columns with upflow of both phases and trickle-bed reactors with downflow are widely used. The diameter of column reactors varies from tens of centimetres to metres, while their height ranges from two metres up to twenty metres. Larger column reactors also have been designed and operated in bulk chemicals plants. The typical catalyst particle size ranges from 1.5 mm (in trickle-bed reactors) to 10 mm (in countercurrent columns) depending on the particular application. The temperature and pressure are limited only by the material of construction and corrosivity of the reaction mixture. 

Fixed-bed reactors are used for testing commercial catalysts of larger particle sizes and to collect data for scale-up (validation of mathematical models, studying the influence of transport processes on overall reactor performance, etc.). Catalyst particles with a size ranging from 1 to 10 mm are tested using reactors of 20 to 100 mm ID. The reactor diameter can be decreased if the catalyst is diluted by fine inert particles the ratio of the reactor diameter to the size of catalyst particles then can be decreased to 3 1 (instead of the 10 to 20 recommended for fixed-bed catalytic reactors). This leads to a lower consumption of reactants. Very important for proper operation of fixed-bed reactors, both in cocurrent and countercurrent mode, is a uniform distribution of both phases over the entire cross-section of the reactor. If this is not the case, reactor performance will be significantly falsified by flow maldistribution. 

Removal of reaction products can shift the equilibrium, forcing the reaction to go to completion. This can be effected by evaporation of products from the reaction mixture (reactive distillations), extraction (including supercritical extraction) of products from the reaction mixture (reactive extractions), or membrane processes. Counter- and cocurrent operation also falls within this category. If the reaction is equilibrium-limited or inhibited by reaction products countercurrent operation outperforms cocurrent operation. 

All the driers discussed above are unsuitable for mixtures with a high liquid proportion (slurries). For such mixtures spray driers (see Fig. 7.2-11) or cyclone driers (see Fig. 7.2-12) are effective. In the former the sluri-y is injected into the drier by a nozzle that atomizes the suspension. Small droplets fall down countercurrently to the hot gas that rises in the conical drier zone. In cyclone driers the sluriy and the hot gas flow cocurrently. Driers of both kinds are characterized by short residence times. Therefore, they are particularly suitable for temperature sensitive products. A significant proportion of driers of all kinds, appropriately modified, can also be operated as solids mixers and/or granulators. 

For G/S heat exchange, altogether eight cases may be differentiated, according to whether the operation is countercurrent or cocurrent, whether the solids are being heated or cooled, and whether the value of T is less or greater than unity. 

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