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Enhancement of the Liquid-Side Mass Transfer in a Falling Film Catalytic Microreactor by In-Channel Mixing Structures
journal contribution
posted on 2012-07-04, 00:00 authored by Evgeny V. Rebrov, Thijs Duisters, Patrick Löb, Jan Meuldijk, Volker HesselCatalytic octanal oxidation with oxygen was performed
at 100 °C
and the total pressure of 5 and 10 bar in a falling film microreactor
with varying reaction plates bearing different in-channel mixing structures.
The liquid flow rate was changed in the range of 3.3–17.5 mL/min.
The liquid-sided mass transfer over grooved or finned structured plates
was enhanced by factors of 1.12 and 1.20, respectively, compared to
that on a standard plate with 16 microchannels with dimensions of
1200 μm × 400 μm. The liquid flow rate over the structured
plates could be increased by 60%–80% without any loss of octanal
conversion. A two-dimensional convection and diffusion model adopted
from Al-Rawashdeh et al. [Chem. Eng. Sci. 2008, 63, 5149] was formulated to simulate the reactor
behavior, and its predictions describe the experimental results in
terms of octanal conversion with an accuracy of 4.3% when the actual
temperature distribution in the reactor plate is taken into account.