Novel Gas-Liquid-Solid Reactors

Multiphase reactors involving gas, liquid, and solid phases have several important applications in the chemical industry, particularly in catalytic processes. Some of the well-known examples are: hydrogenation and oxidation of organic compounds, hydro-processing coal-derived and petroleum oils, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, and methanation reactions. Due to the presence of three phases, the problem of reactor design is often important to achieve effective mass and heat transfer as well as a mixing pattern favorable to the particular process. The reactors are mainly of two types: (a) solid catalyst is suspended either by mechanical agitation or gas-induced agitation and (b) solid catalyst is in a fixed bed with concurrent or countercurrent feed of gas and liquid re-actants. The reactor types conventionally used in industry are: (a) mechanically agitated or bubble column slurry reactors and (b) trickle-bed or packed-bed bubble reactor. The various design and modeling aspects of these reactors have been reviewed by Satterfield [1], Chaudhari and Ramachandran [2], Shah [3,4], Ramachandran and Chaudhari [5], Shah et al. [6], and Herskowitz and Smith [7]. In several industrial processes these reactor designs are modified to achieve a certain specific objective, such as better heat or mass transfer, higher catalyst efficiency, better reactor performance and selectivity, etc. Similarly, specially designed reactors are often used for laboratory kinetic studies or to understand a certain phenomenon. Thus, novel multiphase reactors are becoming important from both academic and industrial viewpoints. Some of the recently introduced novel gas-liquid-solid reactor types are: (a) loop recycle slurry reactors, (b) basket-type reactors, (c) ebullated-bed reactors, (d) internal or external recycle reactors, (e) multistage slurry or packed-bed reactors, (f) column reactors with sieve trays or multiple agitators, (g) gas-induced agitated reactors, and (h) horizontal-packed-bed reactors. are being used in several new commercial processes, and various design aspects, such as hydrodynamics and mass and heat transfer, have been the subject of investigations in the last few years. However, no attempt to review the scattered information on these novel gas-liquid-solid reactors has been made. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to review important developments in novel gas-liquid-solid reactors. For each type of reactor, advantages, disadvantages, and applications are discussed. Further, the status of information on hydrodynamics and mass transfer parameters and scale-up considerations is reviewed. These novel reactor designs are being used in several new commercial processes, and various design aspects, such as hydrodynamics and mass and heat transfer, have been the subject of investigations in the last few years. However, no attempt to review the scattered information on these novel gas-liquid-solid reactors has been made. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to review important developments in novel gas-liquid-solid reactors. For each type of reactor, advantages, disadvantages, and applications are discussed. Further, the status of information on hydrodynamics and mass transfer parameters and scale-up considerations is reviewed.