Catalytic wet oxidation: micro-meso-macro methodology from catalyst synthesis to reactor design

Compared to alternative mature wet oxidation technologies that have tremendously proliferated in industry, heterogeneously mediated catalytic wet oxidation (CWO) has achieved, thus far, poor commercial penetration. The two factors that are likely responsible for this situation are (i) the lack of efficient and robust catalysts that pass with success the acid-test for commercial exploitation remote from the aseptic academic conditions, (ii) and the lack of a comprehensive reactor design framework and methodology for scale-up, reactor selection and operation inherent to the multiphase nature of the CWO reactors. This synthetic review summarizes the recent research and development work conducted at Laval University on the CWO from both the perspectives of catalyst development and testing, and multiphase reactor simulations and selection. Specific emphasis was put, on the one hand, on the development brought to some manganese oxide-ceria composites against deactivation, and on the other hand, on the formulation of multidimensional unsteady-steady non-isothermal mass-energy transport/reaction models, embedding catalyst deactivation or not, for trickle bed reactors, packed bubble column reactors, three-phase fluidized beds and slurry bubble columns. A micro-Meso-macro scale methodology was adopted from the materials synthesis up to reactor selection in which the catalyst performance (conversion, selectivity, and deactivation), the intrinsic chemical kinetics, the fluid phase thermodynamics, the pellet scale transport, and the reactor scale physical phenomena (heat, mass transport and hydrodynamics) were integrated. As a result, several aspects relevant to reactor behaviour such as solvent evaporation due to CWO reaction exothermic effects, catalyst partial wetting and catalyst deactivation, and back-mixing effects were covered, and recommendations were formulated.