The development of monolith reactors: general strategy with a case study

A systematic approach for the research and development strategy of monolith reactors is presented. Several different mock-up experiments were carried out to study separately the different phenomena, e.g. hydrodynamics, mass transfer and intrinsic kinetics. Parameters for the independent models of each phenomenon were estimated and different submodels were combined for the complete mathematical description. The complete model was used for simulation of full-scale reactors. The experimental results indicate that a wide range of gas-liquid mass transfer rates (k(l)a < 1.2) can be reached in monoliths. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.