Non-ideal flow in liquid-solid fixed beds of irregular-shaped particles: A critical review

Available data and correlations for non ideal flow in liquid-solid fixed beds are summarized and reviewed with focus on irregular-shaped particles as packing material. The reason is that in many industrial applications (adsorption, ion exchange, catalysis, etc.) the particles used are of irregular shape while the vast majority of available data on dispersion and non ideal flow is on non-porous spherical or other ordered-shaped particles (saddles, rings, cylinders, tablets, etc.). In the same time, dispersion plays an important part, for example, in reactant and product transport in packed bed reactors, in adsorption, leaching, etc. In the present review all available correlations and data for liquid-solid fixed beds packed with irregular-shaped particles are collected for the prediction of the dispersion coefficients over a wide range of practical values particle Reynolds number. For the current review, 198 experimental points used and 6 Ped - Rep correlations are presented, all derived for irregular-shaped particles.