Residence time distribution and hold-up in a cocurrent upflow packed bed reactor at elevated pressure

The residence time distribution in liquid phase was measured in a cocurrent upflow packed bed reactor for the system methanol-hydrogen at low Reynolds numbers and at elevated pressure. The plug flow with axial dispersion model was used to describe mixing in the system. The imperfect pulse method was used to measure the system response to a tracer pulse input. The parameters were calculated using the weighted moments method. The influence of the weighting factor was investigated. The experimental and theoretical outputs, as calculated by convolution, agreed very well. Different types of correlations were used for the Bodenstein number and liquid hold-up. From these correlations, the optimal one was selected for each parameter. A comparison was made between the ordinary moments and the weighted moments methods which led to the conclusion that the latter method is superior with respect to the accuracy of the estimated parameters and therefore strongly recommended.