COEXISTENCE OF FLOW REGIME TRANSITIONS IN FOAMING TRICKLE BED REACTOR.

The myth of coexistence of flow regimes in trickle bed reactor were experimentally explored using 40 ppm and 60 ppm highly foaming aqueous surfactant-air system. Since the last publication, none of literature present adequate experimental investigation of these flow irregularities arise near regime transitional boundary. The influence of physiochemical as well as hydrodynamic variables has been investigated to verify the possibilities of coexistence of flow regimes at corresponding liquid and gas flow velocities. The increment in the gas-liquid throughput resulted in an uneven disturbance velocity leads to formation of coexistence of flow regimes. The implementation of modified liquid-gas distributor slightly improve the flow maldistribution over packed bed but limited to low gas-liquid superficial velocities and temperatures. A relatively new technique, two gas-liquid distributors has been attempted first time to nullify the these kind of flow irregularities arise, trends evident an outstanding improvement of regime flow patterns compared with earlier cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]