COMPUTER-AIDED CONTROL OF A LABORATORY TRICKLE BED REACTOR

Experimental data illustrating the prevention of hot-spot temperature formation in a catalyst bed by a computer-aided decrease of the feed substrate concentration in the reactor inlet based on axial temperature profile monitoring are presented in this study. Cyclohexane hydrogenation in a cyclohexene solution using 3% palladium on charcoal catalyst was taken as the model exothermal reaction. The experiments were carried out on-line using a Hewlett-Packard computer data logger. It was found that neither the transportation lag of a control loop nor the sampling period of the axial temperature profile measurements lead to instability in the reactor regime control. © 1990.