The Role of Catalysts in Bubble Surface Layer on Contacting Efficiency in a Fluidized Catalyst Bed

Abstract

Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide was carried out in a fluidized catalyst bed. The apparent activation energy of the overall reaction rate constant obtained for the fluidized bed was almost the same as the value obtained in a fixed bed experiment. This result indicates that the role of the mass transfer between the bubble and emulsion phases was very small in this reaction system. Since we consider that the catalysts around bubbles affect the overall reaction rate in the fluidized catalyst bed, we investigated the thickness of the catalyst layer around bubbles. In addition, we reconstructed three-dimensional images of this layer by using a fast X-ray CT scanner.