Use of a trickle bed reactor for heterogeneous catalytic ozonation of phenol

Abstract

Due to its operational advantages, mass and heat transfer characteristics, and low-pressure drop, trickle bed reactors have been successfully used in many gas-liquid-solid applications (e.g. wet air oxidation processes). On the other hand, heterogeneous catalytic ozonation has been mainly carried out in batch and semibatch stirred tank systems, although some research is reported on packed bed reactors as well. However, the use of trickle bed reactors for heterogeneous catalytic ozonation is yet to be explored as a viable technology for industrial applications. This paper presents a study on the use of a co-current down flow trickle bed reactor for heterogeneous catalytic ozonation of phenol (as a model pollutant) utilizing iron-modified diatomite pellets as catalyst. Hydrodynamic and residence time distribution (RTD) analyses were also performed in order to characterize the reactor behavior under different flow conditions. It was found that the reactor could operate under trickle and pulsing flow regimes and that RTD data adjusted well to a N=12 n-CSTR model. The results showed that phenol conversion increases by 6.4% (from 13.3 to 19.7%, with τ = 0.098 min) when using the catalyst and the external mass transfer appears to be the controlling step in the heterogeneous catalytic reaction.

Reference

Briceno, L. & Duran, E., Use of a trickle bed reactor for heterogeneous catalytic ozonation of phenol, 22nd International Ozone Association World Congress, Barcelona, August 2015.