DESIGN

CONCEPT AND
APPLICATION
OF MONOLITH
REACTORS
TERM PAPER
CHL221

Submitted by
Kartik Vijay
2007CH100068
INDEX

Introduction
Literature review
Design concept of monolith reactor
Engineering Correlations
Applications of monolith reactor
Summary
References

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INTRODUCTION

MONOLITHS are structured catalyst supports consisting of

parallel straight capillary channels. Nowadays, they are mostly
used for the catalytic exhaust convertor in the automobile
industry and end-of-pipe gas cleaning.
Monoliths, mainly used in gas-phase automotive and
environmental process applications, have, of late found new
potential in replacing the present 3 phase slurry based
reactors for the productions of specialty chemicals. They
have their economic and logistical advantages against the
stirred tank reactors.

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Gas only application-

The gas only application stems from the fact that the
pressure drop is low, thus using surface area as a
criterion , the pressure drop being of lower magnitude
than in a randomly packed beds. Channels are about a
millimeter in diameter, and on the wall(~100um) a
wash coat of catalytic material (~50um) is applied.

The more established gas-liquid application of

monoliths involves a heterogeneous catalyst on
the wall.

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Why reactor designing ?
A well-designed reactor:

• produces more product

• produces higher-quality product
• uses less catalyst
• runs for longer between downtimes
• uses less energy
• products less off-spec product, by-products, or pollutant
• can run for longer between shutdowns
• is easier to control
• has a lower operating cost
• in many cases, has a lower capital cost.

Thus reactor designing is essential. The goal of reactor design

is to build reactors that help us achieve maximum possible
reaction rate, which can be attained by using small catalyst
particles such that mass transfer resistance decreases. However,
small catalyst sizes result in high pressure drops. Monoliths
have the advantage of high surface area and yet lower
pressure drops. Also monoliths have the added advantage of
better flow distribution.
This paper will mostly discuss the design
considerations and factors using fundamental
equations and literature co-relations , also the economic
aspect will be given importance.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Most of the work has been done in modeling single channel
monoliths.

Flytzani-
Flytzani-Stenphanopoulos
Stenphanopoulos developed a model for heat
transfer in a honeycomb monolith with no reactions and
achieved good comparisons with experimental results.
Significant contributions have been made by Kolaczkowski to
describe the heat transfer in a monolith operating at steady
state with a non-reacting gas.
Other works
RESEARCH PAPERS:

1) Shouldn’t catalysts shape up?: Structured reactors in general and gas–

liquid monolith reactors in particular -Michiel
Michiel T. Kreutzer,
Kreutzer, Freek
Kapteijn and Jacob A. Moulijn
2) Applying monolith reactors for hydrogenations in the production of
specialty chemicals—process and economic considerations
Catalysis Today, Volume 105, Issues 3-4, 15 August 2005, Pages 305-317
Reinaldo M. Machado, Robert R. Broekhuis, Andrew F. Nordquist, Brian P. Roy,
Steven
Steven R. Carney

Many other research papers have been published in this

area. Mostly dealing with their uses and applications of
monolith reactors and their designing.

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 DESIGN CONCEPT OF MONOLITH
REACTOR

FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED ARE:

1) DISTRIBUTION OF GAS OVER LIQUID

The proper distribution of gas over liquid over the column cross section is
crucial, since inside the monolith block no redistribution can occur. For this
there are various distributors available , spargers as well.Liquid is divided
into a recirculation region in the slugs and lubricating layer separating the
bubble-slug .

2) NO OF CHANNELS VERSUS PRESSURE DROP

Pressure drop is required to force flow through the channels, which offer a
high amount of friction to the flow of fluids. More the number of channels
,more is the surface area, more is the pressure drop. For production of a
compound or product, a minimum surface area is required, thus optimizing
the pressure drop versus surface area criterion , by minimizing the cost
involved, is important.

3) Lengths to be coupled

An optimum length of a monolith reactor is around 15cm, generally, such as

to ensure or verify that the channels have not broken down.
Two or more reactors may be combined in order to produce faster , the
product.

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4) Diameter of the channels.

Two-phase flow through capillary channels is considerably

different from two-phase flow through larger channels: viscous
and interfacial stresses, both inversely proportional to the
diameter, are more important than inertial and gravitational
stresses.
5) Wall thickness.

Wall thickness, should be optimized so as to offer minimum resistance to

the flow of fluids , still enough to be able to last long against corrosion.

6) BATCH VERSUS CONTINOUS

Depending upon the quantity and the quality of the product required and
other factors such as feasibility, chemistry of the reaction taken into account,
we can decide if we want a batch or a continuous process.

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7) COUNTER CURRENT Versus CO-CURRENT

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Different flow patterns
Typically—with the aforementioned limitations in mind—the number of different flow patterns
may be reduced to the following five.

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ENGINEERING CORRELATIONS
Engineering correlations for single phase are as follows.

is used successfully to model the pressure drop in monoliths. Off course this
simple equation can be improved to cover some other phenomena. In the
entrance region, the ow pattern develops from an initially at pro le to a
parabolic one. (A similar phenomenon will be observed with mass and heat
transfer later). This consumes energy,and is accounted for by a term with a
vanishing contribution for long channels. Also,the in- and outlet effects can be
included in a fashion, similar to the modeling of pipes

For mass and heat transfer, we can use the Chilton-Colburn analogies: for
mass andheat transfer the equation will have the same form

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The expressions for Sh and Nu contain a term for in nitely long channels and
a
contribution for entrance effects. The length of the entrance effects depends on
the ow properties (Re) and the uid properties (Re, Sc, Pr ). For a typical
Re value of 100, a Sc value of 1 and 1000 for gases and liquids,
respectively, and a channel diameter of 1 mm the entrance length is 0.1 and
10 m, respectively. (Since mass transfer is enhanced by the entrance effects,
the fact that monoliths can only be extruded to a length of 1 mis less of a
problem, if the entrance effects are repeated every once in a while.So, we can
conclude that well established solutions for the mass, heat and momentum
balances can be used to create a reactor model for monolith reactors with
single phase feed. And, indeed, these models have been applied successfully

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APPLICATION OF MONOLITH REACTORS
Main advantage is for fast reaction chemistries, where it can achieve several
times higher volumetric activity than ordinary slurry reactors.

Being very effective in terms of the various factors cited earlier in the term
paper, they have a great potential to replace the other slurry based reactors,
mostly the anciently used packed bed reactor.

There are 3 main fields of applications,

hydrogenations , oxidations and bioprocesses.

Monoliths were originally designed for single phase use in the automotive
catalyst converter. Being very expensive , feasible use being in expensive cars,
mostly motorsport. They are required to be replaced after a while, each mini-
monolith costing a huge amount.
In 1980s at chalmers, hydrogenation of nitroaromatics was performed,

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In short, monoliths have been applied for a wide range of
processes
• Fast multiphase reactions, typically hydrogenations, seem to
benefit the most from the application of monoliths.
• In microreactor technology, the use of segmented flow is
more recent (e.g. Song et al., 2004).
• On microfabricated integrated systems, much more control
of the inlet and outlet geometries is possible, and the
research focuses on general features of the integrated
microfluid system, such as capillary gas–liquid separators
downstream the reaction zone (Günther et al., 2004).
• An elegant application that uses the plug flow
characteristic is the production of colloidal silica (Khan et
al., 2004).

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SUMMARY

The various design parameters and

variables have been discussed in this
paper. The mathematical correlations
studied. Various advantages and
disadvantages and have been highlighted
and the suitability of the reactor to
various fields was justified. Applications
of monolith reactor and its potential to
replace the slurry based packed bed
reactor were mentioned and notified.

Thus , the final word would be , monolith

reactors are the way to go for the future ,
being efficient in more ways than not,
they will replace the Traditional packed
bed reactor. They have great scope of being
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specific designable according the
requirement of the process and economic
viability.

the monolith is most suitable for processes

that are

• stable enough for packed-bed operation and

• need better mass transfer than can be obtained in
any conventional reactor, including the trickle
bed and the stirred tank reactor.

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REFERENCES

1) Multiphase monolith reactors: Chemical reaction engineering

of segmented flow in microchannels

Michiel T. Kreutzera, , , Freek Kapteijna, Jacob A. Moulijna

and Johan J. Heiszwolfb
2) Structured catalysts and reactors
By Andrzej Cybulski, Jacob A. Moulijn

3) Design of Heterogeneous Catalysts: New Approaches Based

on Synthesis ...
By Umit S. Ozkan
4) Structured catalysts and reactors
By Andrzej Cybulski, Jacob A. Moulijn

5) Modeling of process intensification

By Frerich Keil
6) Monolith Reactors
Catalysis Engineering
6) http://www.psenterprise.com/search/index.html

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