Experimental Evaluation of a Three-Phase Downflow Capillary Reactor

One reason for the few commercial successes of intensified catalytic multiphase reactors might be that many of these developments inherently incorporate a fixed catalyst, which may not suit an industry that is based on principles of batch manufacture and multiproduct plants. This study evaluates an intensified reactor that encompasses the opportunities demonstrated from structured flows and thin channels, together with a mobile, slurry catalyst, namely, a multicapillary reactor with gas/liquid/suspended catalyst flow. Using the single capillary arrangement, the reaction of resorcinol hydrogenation was shown to be first order in hydrogen and to be operating under kinetic control. The increase of the gas-to-liquid flow ratio showed a positive effect on the observed reaction rate. Comparison of the rate of resorcinol hydrogenation in the capillary reactor with an autoclave under equivalent reaction conditions demonstrated that the rate in the single capillary reactor (SCR) was enhanced by a factor of 7.