Trickle-Bed Oxidation Reactors

For reactions necesitating a solid catalyst and which invoive both reisuvely volatile and nonvclarile reactants, three-phase reactirs are required. Equipment used to achieve intimate contacting of the three phases has been procominantly in the form of slurry reactors, analogous to the stirred-tank homogenous system, or fixed-bed reactors in which the two fluid phases flow through a stationary bed of catalyst particles. Trickle-bed reactors are a type ofthe second classification in which both gas and liquid flow downward through the catalyst bed. Such systems avoid the disadvantage of separating small catalyst particles from the fluid product streams associated with slurry reactors, and also avoid the limitation of flow rates uncountered with upflow or countercurrent flow through fixed beds.