Pressure drop measurements and modeling on SiC foams

Foam-structured beds are likely to be the next generation of catalyst supports due to their interesting specific properties (large exchange area, low pressure drop, easy control of external porosity, etc.). Nevertheless, chemical engineering parameters of this new catalyst support types are still not completely clear for the scientific community and many approaches are attempted to solve this problem. SiC foams offer the dual advantages of the interesting properties of structured beds and the intrinsic thermal and mechanical properties of silicon carbide as a catalytic support. In the present work, the problem of pressure drops along foam beds is studied with a new simplistic geometrical model as a first step in the understanding of the peculiar hydrodynamic behavior of SiC foams in chemical processes. The proposed model was successfully validated by experimental results on a relatively large range of parameters which fully confirm the validity of the model. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.