Application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to Determine the Influence of Fluid Dynamics on Desulfurization in Bench Scale Reactors

The influence of fluid dynamics on the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) reactions of a diesel oil in bench-scale reactors was evaluated. The porosities and liquid saturations of catalyst beds were quantified by using the MRI technique. The gas-liquid systems used in the experiments were nitrogen diesel and hydrogen diesel. An apparatus was especially constructed, allowing in situ measurements of gas and liquid distributions in packed beds at elevated pressure and temperature up to 20 bar and 200 °C, respectively. The reactor itself had a length of 500 mm and an internal diameter of 19 mm. The packed beds used in this MRI study consisted of: (1) 2 mm diameter nonporous spherical glass beads and (2) 1.3 mm diameter porous Al2O3 trilobes having the same size as the original trilobe catalyst used in HDS bench-scale experiments. The superficial gas and liquid velocities were set within the range of trickle flow, e.g., u0G = 20–500 mm/s and u0L = 0.1–6 mm/s. In parallel with the MRI experiments, the hydrodesulfurization of a gas oil was investigated in a bench-scale plant. Its reactor had the same dimensions of the trickle-bed column used in the MRI experiments and was filled with original trilobe catalyst. ... mehrThese catalytic experiments were carried out at a wide range of operating conditions (p = 30–80 bar, T = 300–380 °C, LHSV = 1–4 h–1). The results of both fluid dynamic and catalytic reaction experiments were then combined for developing a simulation model to predict the HDS performance by accounting for fluid dynamic nonidealities.