A new approach for scale-up of bubble column reactors

• A new design methodology for minimizing the scale-up risks for bubble column reactors is proposed.
• The small columns within the large reactor are formed using the heat exchanging tubes.
• These columns duplicate solid wall columns.
• An efficient way to design large scale bubble column reactors via reactor compartmentalization.

The reactor of choice for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is a slurry bubble column. One of the few disadvantages of bubble columns is the difficulties associated with their scale-up. The latter is due to complex phases’ interactions and significant back-mixing.For a proper scaling dimensionless numbers should be kept constant in the various scales in order to ensure both dynamic and geometrical similarity. With the complex nature of the flow in these systems, this becomes very hard to achieve. Hence, innovative approaches to provide a firm scale-up methodology are needed.Controlling the effect of scale using heat exchanging internals by means of reactor compartmentalization is proposed in this study. Preliminary results show that radial gas holdup profiles as well as other bubble dynamics inside the compartments exhibited similar behavior as inside a solid wall column, since the comparison between the single tube bundle compartment and data obtained in 6 inches steel bubble column shows good match.