A Novel Radial Flow Multi-Stage Spherical Reactor in Linear Alkyl Benzene Plant

In this work a novel radial-flow, spherical packed bed reactor (RF-SR) for dehydrogenation of heavy paraffin have been modeled, mathematically. In the radial-flow spherical configuration, the space between the two concentric spheres is filled by packed bed catalyst. The reactants are flowing through the outer surface to the inner sphere. The performance of the this reactors is compared with the conventional single-type tubular radial flow reactor. The reactors are loaded with the same amount of catalyst in the conventional single-stage tubular radial flow reactor. The results show that the four stages reactor setups can improve the olefin production rate by 350.48 tons per year. In addition, selectivity of olefin is reached to 0.7676 in four stage spherical configuration.