Hydrodynamics in a pressurized cocurrent gas-liquid trickle bed reactor

The influence of gas density on total external liquid hold-up, pressure drop and gas-liquid interfacial area, under trickle-flow conditions, and the transition to pulse flow have been investigated with nitrogen or helium as the gas phase up to 7.5 MPa. It is concluded that the hydrodynamics depends on the gas density and not on the reactor pressure. At higher gas densities, the operating region for trickle flow becomes larger while the gas-liquid interfacial area increases only slightly. Pressure gradient and liquid hold-up are considerably affected by gas density and correlations have been derived for these parameters.