Multiphase Reactor Design

The authors are grateful for the ARC funding for the researeh program on multiphase reactor system design and UNSW Engineering for a postgraduate scholarship to SJC. 

Gianetto, A., and P.L. Silveston (editors), Multiphase Chemical Reactors Theory, Design, Scale-up, Hemisphere, Washington, 1986. 

Classification by Phase Despite the generic classification by operating mode, reactors are designed to accommodate the reactant phases and provide optimal conditions for reaction. Reactants may be fluid(s) or solid(s), and as such, several reactor types have been developed. Singlephase reactors are typically gas- (or plasma- ) or liquid-phase reactors. Two-phase reactors may be gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, gas-solid, or liquid-solid reactors. Multiphase reactors typically have more than two phases present. The most common type of multiphase reactor is a gas-liquid-solid reactor however, liquid-liquid-solid reactors are also used. The classification by phases will be used to develop the contents of this section. 

A number of successful devices have been in use for finding mass-transfer coefficients, some of which are sketched in Fig. 23-29, and all of which have known or adjustable interfacial areas. Such laboratory testing is reviewed, for example, by Danckwerts Gas-Liquid Reactions, McGraw-Hill, 1970) and Charpentier (in Ginetto and Silveston, eds.. Multiphase Chemical Reactor Theory, Design, Scaleup, Hemisphere, 1986). 

It is the intention of this contribution to give an overview of the procedures to be applied to model a multiphase reactor and its performance for a homogeneous catalytic reaction for a detailed multiphase design the reader is referred to appropriate textbooks. 

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. 

MULTIPHASE REACTORS THE DESIGN AND SCALE-UP PROBLEM Effect of speed of agitation on solute flux (mol/m s)... 

Multiphase Catalytic Reactors Theory, Design, Manufacturing, and Applications, First Edition. Edited by Zeynep llsen Onsan and Ahmet Kerim Avci. 

Title Multiphase catalytic reactors theory, design, manufecturing, and applications / edited by Zeynep Ilsen Onsan, Ahmet Kerim Avci. 

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