A NEW, IMPROVED LIQUID HOLD-UP CORRELATION FOR TRICKLE-BED REACTORS

Presently available liquid hold-up correlations for trickle-bed reactors are not applicable over wide ranges of system conditions. The new, improved correlation for the liquid hold-up in a trickle-bed reactor presented here, derived from fundamental considerations and a wide-ranging data base of some 5000 hydrodynamic experimental results, is applicable to industrial trickle-bed reactors since it is based on wide variations of all the important variables, including measurements at high pressures. No other previously derived correlations are applicable to high pressure operations. A comparison with recent data on liquid hold-up in co-current upflow of gas and liquid shows that the correlation proposed for high interaction downflow gives a fair estimate of the upflow data, as long as the liquid is not foaming. © 1990.