Trends in catalytic reaction engineering

Catalytic reactions in multiphase systems are prevalent in production of fu els, bulk and specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, materials, food and fee d, etc. Making useful products, at economical yields and selectivities, fro m the diverse chemistries in such a broad range of applications requires th e ability to quantify the interplay of transport phenomena and kinetics. Th is is the domain of catalytic reaction engineering. In this paper the curre nt state of the art of this discipline is briefly reviewed with the emphasi s on describing the increased use of fundamentals in multiphase reactor mod eling and scaleup. Packed beds, trickle beds, slurry bubble columns, simult aneous reaction and separation via catalytic distillation, membrane reactor s and trickling solids adsorbent, as well as nonconventional multiphase rea ctor operations are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.