Multitubular three-phase reactor for reasonable catalyst screening Tapio Salmi

Three-phase catalytic operation in a multitubular reactor unit is demonstrated. The main parameters studied include catalyst particle size, residence time, temperature, and catalyst reuse. To evaluate the performance of the reactor system, the catalytic hydrogenation of citral to citronellal and citronellol in ethanol was used as a sample reaction. The catalysts reduced in situ with hydrogen at 400°C for 90 min and cooled down to the reaction temperature. The equipment produced very reliable and reproducible data. Catalyst deactivation becomes visible in the time-on-stream behavior. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 18th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/24-28/2008).