An innovative reaction heat offset operation for a multiphase fixed bed reactor dealing with volatile compounds

Hydrogenation of benzene to cyclohexane was conducted in an adiabatic fixed-bed reactor under a phase transitional condition. In which process. a mixture of benzene and cyclohexane was fed into the reactor at the bottom under the liquid condition, however, the liquid phase disappeared and turned into gas phase at the reactor outlet through vaporization. It-follows from this novel idea that the problems associated with reaction heat removal and low catalyst efficiency of the liquid-filled catalyst could be solved simultaneously with emptying of the liquid from the catalyst. However, the benzene concentration in the mixture should not exceed 14% if simple phase transition is employed, since the reaction heat is seven times the liquid vaporization heat. To optimize this primitive operation, a side stream quenching operation was proposed and attempted experimentally, and it was found that the side stream quenching with double injection points could be an acceptable operating strategy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.