Studies on the performance of a microscale trickle bed reactor using different sizes of diluent

The microscale trickle bed reactor can be used for testing commercial size catalyst, if its inherent limitations, such as channeling, wall effect, and backmixing, are overcome by diluting the catalyst bed with a nonporous ine rt particles of suitable size. The effect of diluent size on the performanc e of a microscale trickle bed reactor, catalyst bed height, as well as on o perating liquid holdup at different liquid hourly space velocities, has bee n studied in the present investigation. The proper size of diluent, which m ay be used for testing as low as 5 mL of commercial catalyst iea microreact or, has been identified experimentally. The results on the hydrodesulfuriza tion of atmospheric gas oil obtained in the microreactor, using the suitabl e size df diluent were compared with the data generated in a bench scale un it. The activation energy calculated from both microreactor and bench-scale reactor rate data was 21 and 25 kcal/mol, respectively.