ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT OF SLURRY BUBBLE COLUMN REACTOR (SBCR) TECHNOLOGY

The major technical objectives of this program are threefold: (1) to develop the design tools and a fundamental understanding of the fluid dynamics of a slurry bubble column reactor to maximize reactor productivity, (2) to develop the mathematical reactor design models and gain an understanding of the hydrodynamic fundamentals under industrially relevant process conditions, and (3) to develop an understanding of the hydrodynamics and their interaction with the chemistries occurring in the bubble column reactor. Successful completion of these objectives will permit more efficient usage of the reactor column and tighter design criteria, increase overall reactor efficiency, and ensure a design that leads to stable reactor behavior when scaling up to large diameter reactors. The past three months of research have been focused on two major areas of bubble column hydrodynamics: (1) pressure and temperature effects on gas holdup and (2) region transition using a sparger as a gas distributor.