Process intensification in gas/liquid/solid reaction in trickle bed reactors: A review

As an important form of reactors for gas/liquid/solid catalytic reaction, trickle bed reactors (TBRs) are widely applied in petroleum industry, biochemical, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries because of their flexibility, simplicity of operation and high throughput. However, TBRs also show inefficient production and hot pots caused by non-uniform fluid distribution and incomplete wetting of the catalyst, which limit their further application in chemical industry. Also, process intensification in TBRs is necessary as the decrease in quality of processed crude oil, caused by increased exploitation depths, and more restrictive environmental regulations and emission standards for industry, caused by increased environment protection consciousness. In recent years, lots of strategies for process intensification in TBRs have been proposed to improve reaction performance to meet the current and future demands of chemical industry from the environmental and economic perspective. This article summarizes the recent progress in techniques for intensifying gas/liquid/solid reaction in TBRs and application of intensified TBRs in petroleum industry.