Trickle-Bed Reactors and Their Future

Since decades, trickle-bed reactors are successfully employed to produce various chemicals, intermediates and fuels. Nevertheless, their operability and efficiency suffers from partial wetting of the particle bed, limited mass and heat transfer, which may cause a reduced catalyst utilization or may create safety problems due to possible formation of hot spots. To intensify process efficiency, the integration of novel catalyst packings, e.g. monoliths or foams, or the periodic operation in terms of fluid throughput, component concentration or temperature is in the discussion of science and industry and will be addressed in the lecture.

This paper will present the state of the art on trickle-bed reactors and provide an outlook on their future.