Transport effects at particle level

What is proposed earlier is also in line with the three levels of reactor engineering discussed by Krishna and Sie [50] and indeed is eminently applicable in the context of three-phase slurry reactors. Naturally, the goal here is to decide on a flow pattern that optimally utilizes the catalyst. In other words, the catalyst has a certain intrinsic activity, and the contacting pattern should try and realize that activity in all parts of the reactor. Thus, level [I] design explained earlier must establish the effective performance metric at the catalyst level, which will be the major topic of discussion in this section. 

It is possible that the actual chemistry of the reaction may be significantly more complex than what is shown in Equation 6.1, involving many species and steps. However, through appropriate lumping schemes, the kinetics may be simplified to individual gas- and liquid-phase reactants and products, with all steps eventually describable in a form presented in Equation 6.1. Thus, without any loss of generality. Equation 6.1 is completely descriptive of any general gas-liquid reaction scheme in a three-phase slurry reactor. 

Naturally, for the aforementioned reaction scheme to be realized, one needs to have the presence of all the three phases (gas, liquid, and solid) in the reactor. When the stoichiometric 

If reaction (6.1) is elementary, then the intrinsic kinetic rate is given by 

Equivalently, the effective volumetric rare of depletion of reactant B from the liquid phase in the reactor would be [46,48] 

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