Evaluation of particle size effect on two-phase flow distri-bution in a hydrotreatment reactor guard bed using parti-cle-resolved CFD simulations

Ivan A. Mik; Oleg P. Klenov; Ivan S. Golubev; Pavel P. Dik; Sergey I. Reshetnikov; Alexandr S. Noskov

doi:10.15826/chimtech.9072

Evaluation of particle size effect on two-phase flow distri-bution in a hydrotreatment reactor guard bed using parti-cle-resolved CFD simulations

Ivan A. Mik, Oleg P. Klenov, Ivan S. Golubev, Pavel P. Dik, Sergey I. Reshetnikov, Alexandr S. Noskov

Abstract

Trickle bed reactors with solid catalyst pellets are important and widely used large-scale apparatuses in the chemical and oil refining industries. In order to reduce the effects of poisons on the catalyst bed and to extend the catalyst loading service life as much as possible, guard beds are loaded onto the main catalyst bed, intended for deposition of fine impurities on them, conversion, binding of catalytic poisons and distribution flow. In this research, realistic loadings of guard bed catalyst pellets were constructed. We demonstrated that the process of studying the features of the hydrodynamic structure of the flow proposed in this work can be used to investigate the flow distribution and hydrodynamic resistance in hydroprocessing reactors. The particles are considered to be Raschig Rings 8 and 16 mm (outer diameter and height) with wall thickness of 1, 2 and 3 mm. The effect of particle size on flow distribution was studied using the standard deviation criterion. Based on this criterion, it was found that the loading of Raschig rings with wall thickness of 1 mm is optimal.

Keywords

hydrotreating; guard-bed; distribution flow; pressure drop; optimal catalyst pellet

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15826/chimtech.9072

Copyright (c) 2025 Ivan A. Mik, Oleg P. Klenov, Ivan S. Golubev, Pavel P. Dik, Sergey I. Reshetnikov, Alexandr S. Noskov

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Chimica Techno Acta, 2014–2025
eISSN 2411-1414
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