RATE ENHANCEMENT AND MULTIPLICITY IN A PARTIALLY WETTED AND FILLED PELLET - EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY

Phase transition during an exothermic multiphase reaction was studied experimentally using a single catalytic pellet reactor. Cyclohexene hy drogenation (to cyclohexane) and disproportionation (to benzene and cy clohexane) on Pd/Al2O3 comprised the test reaction system. The steady- state behavior of the pellet exposed on part of its surface by a flowi ng liquid rivulet containing the liquid reactant (cyclohexene) and the other part by a flowing gas containing the gaseous reactant (hydrogen ) was examined. Measurements included the pellet weight (liquid holdup ), degree of external welting, center and surface temperature and over all reaction rates. Two regimes observed are: a low-rate regime for al l hydrogen gas-phase concentrations in which the partially wetted pell et is filled mostly with liquid and nearly isothermal, a high-rate reg ime for hydrogen concentrations exceeding a critical value in which th e pellet is filled only partially with liquid and the pellet temperatu re rise is considerable. Benzene formation was observed in this state. The difference in overall cyclohexane formation rates between the two states was as high as a factor of 20 for the same bulk conditions. Ov er the range where multiple states were observed, the steady state of the pellet depended on whether the pellet was prefilled with the react ive gas mixture or with liquid cyclohexene. The range over which the h igh-rate state was sustained was the largest for the most active catal yst and declined as the catalyst slowly deactivated. Data features are interpreted using the theoretical foundations of the half-wetted cata lytic slab model (Harold and Watson, 1993).