Effect of Internals Configurations and Sparger Design on the Local Hydrodynamics in Slurry Bubble Column Reactors Operating under Fischer- Tropsch Conditions

摘要

A three-phase, three-dimensional multi-Eulerian Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model, which has been developed in ANSYS, Fluent v. 14.5 and experimentally validated [1, 2], was used to predict the effects of gas spargers on the local hydrodynamics (gas holdup, Suter mean bubble diameters and backmixing) in a pilot-scale (0.3-m ID, 3-m height) Slurry Bubble Column Reactor (SBCR). The CFD model was also used to predict the effects of internals on the local hydrodynamics in a large-scale conceptual (1-m ID, 10-m height) SBCR. The simulations were carried out in the two reactors operating under typical Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process conditions (pressure = 20.5 bar, temperature = 443 K, catalyst concentration = 11 vol% and inlet superficial gas velocity = 0.20 m/s) without chemical reactions.