Dynamic Liquid Saturation in a Trickle Bed Reactor Involving Newtonian/non-Newtonian Liquid Phase

Dynamic liquid saturation is an important hydrodynamic parameter that affects the performance of a trickle bed reactor. The parameters that affect the dynamic liquid saturation, by using Newtonian liquid phase, include gas and liquid flow rates, surface tension and viscosity of the liquid phase, and bed configurations. Additional rheological parameters affecting dynamic liquid saturation, in case of non-Newtonian viscoinelastic liquids, are observed to be flow consistency index K and flow behavior index n. The effect of viscoelasticity, in case of non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluids, was investigated in terms of Weisseriberg number. A set of 20 correlations were selected from the literature to see the applicability of these correlations under varied conditions of bed configurations and liquid-phase properties as studied in the present investigation. It was observed that the correlations are valid only for a restricted range of parameters and none of the correlations seem to be applicable over the entire range of parameters as investigated in the present study. On the basis of the experimental data obtained, correlations are first developed for Newtonian liquids. These correlations could reproduce the literature data satisfactorily to +/- 20%. Further, the correlations developed are extended to predict dynamic liquid saturation for viscoinelastic and viscoelastic liquid phases.