Wednesday, November 7, 2007
509aw

Parallel Multiphase Micro-Packed Bed Catalyst Testing

Daniel Van Herk, Nathalie Marquez, Pedro Castaņo, Michiel T. Kreutzer, Michiel Makkee, and Jacob A. Moulijn. Delft University of Technology, Julianalaan 136, Delft, 2628 BL, Netherlands

With reactors getting smaller, it is physically more feasible to scale out the equipment. For catalysis research, it has always been an aim to perform high-throughput experimentation. Our work shows the design and performance of a parallel multiphase micro-packed bed reactor system. The current design is a high-precision device, capable of quantitative kinetics measurements, rather than only comparing catalysts qualitatively (screening). Our unit, with 6 parallel reactors, is designed to operate at one pressure and temperature for all six reactors, while the flow rates of both gas and liquid can be individually controlled for each reactor. The whole system can be operated unmanned and the liquid phase is analysed off-line. When operating with such small reactors, a low dead volume is essential. Therefore, a small gas-liquid separator, with a dead volume of less than 0.4 ml, has been designed and built that can operate at pressures up to 100 bar. Temperature has a very large influence on the kinetics, which is why the reactor was built to keep temperature variations below 1K for 100K < T < 450K. The purpose of this system is to evaluate hydro-processing kinetics. In this talk, I will show the successful performance in catalyst testing of an HTE unit consisting of multiphase micro-packed beds.