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Article
A New Approach for Scale-Up of Bubble Column Reactors
Chemical Engineering Research and Design
  • Ahmed A. Youssef
  • Mohamed E. Hamed
  • Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Milorad P. Duduković
Abstract

The reactor of choice for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is a slurry bubble column. One of the few disadvantages of bubble columns is the difficulties associated with their scale-up. The latter is due to complex phases' interactions and significant back-mixing.For a proper scaling dimensionless numbers should be kept constant in the various scales in order to ensure both dynamic and geometrical similarity. With the complex nature of the flow in these systems, this becomes very hard to achieve. Hence, innovative approaches to provide a firm scale-up methodology are needed.Controlling the effect of scale using heat exchanging internals by means of reactor compartmentalization is proposed in this study. Preliminary results show that radial gas holdup profiles as well as other bubble dynamics inside the compartments exhibited similar behavior as inside a solid wall column, since the comparison between the single tube bundle compartment and data obtained in 6 inches steel bubble column shows good match.

Department(s)
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Research Center/Lab(s)
Center for High Performance Computing Research
Keywords and Phrases
  • Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis,
  • Hydrodynamics,
  • Bubble Column Reactors,
  • Bubble Dynamics,
  • Compartmentalization,
  • Dimensionless Number,
  • Innovative Approaches,
  • Internals,
  • Scale-Up,
  • Slurry Bubble Column,
  • Bubble Columns
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2014 Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
9-1-2014
Publication Date
01 Sep 2014
Citation Information
Ahmed A. Youssef, Mohamed E. Hamed, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan and Milorad P. Duduković. "A New Approach for Scale-Up of Bubble Column Reactors" Chemical Engineering Research and Design Vol. 92 Iss. 9 (2014) p. 1637 - 1646 ISSN: 0263-8762
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/muthanna-al-dahhan/2/