Assessing the Impact of Particle Breakage on Bed Packing Behavior

Many commercial processes in the refining and petrochemical industry utilize packed beds of catalyst or adsorbent particles. When these particles break, the nature in which they pack together can change and negatively impact the performance of the packed bed. Predicting these effects using standard quality control methods for particle mechanical strength is difficult given the complex nature of packed assemblies of irregularly shaped particles. This talk will present several examples of how advanced characterization tools in conjunction with controlled bed packing studies have been used to study the impact of particle breakage in packed beds. High speed video imaging of rapid breakage events reveal different fracture mechanisms of UOP catalysts and how these effects cause differences in quality control tests. Additionally, 3D x-ray tomography (XRT) has been successfully used to non-destructively characterize both individual catalyst particles and sub-scale packed catalyst beds both before and after particle breakage has occurred. Findings from these studies can be used to develop a fundamental understanding of the impact of catalyst breakage on commercial operations.