International Journal of Scientific Research in Chemical Engineering, 1(1), pp.

1-8, 2014
Available online at http://www.ijsrpub.com/ijsrce
ISSN: 2345-6787; 2014 IJSRPUB
http://dx.doi.org/10.12983/ijsrce-2014-p0001-0008
1
Full Length Research Paper
Comparative Study of Packed Bed Reactor and Fluidized Bed Reactor for the
Production of Propylene Oxide
Abhishek Sao
1*
, Omprakash Sahu
2*

1
Department of Chemical Engineering, IT Guru Ghashi University, Bilaspur (CG), India.
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, KIOT, Wollo University, Kombolcha (SW), Ethiopia
*Correspondence Author: ops0121@gmail.com; Tel: +251933520653
Received 02 April 2014; Accepted 02 May 2014
Abstract. Propylene oxide has major uses in different chemical product, with production of more than 6 million tons per year
worldwide. The main goal of study is to compare the efficiency of the packed bed reactor and fluidized bed reactor for the
production of propylene oxide. Currently two are applied for the production of propylene oxide first chlorohydrin process and
second hydroperoxide process. For this study hydroperoxide process was used. It found that the conversion factor with respect
catalysis loading and length of the tube found to be 100 % shown by packed bed reactor. By design and experiment it was
found that packed bed reactor is more suitable as compared to fluidized bed reactor for production of propylene oxide.
Keyword: Acid; Boiling point; Catalysis; Process; Time
1. INTRODUCTION
Propylene oxide (PO) is a major industrial product
with production of more than 6 million tons per year
worldwide. Propylene oxide is a volatile, clear,
colorless, and extremely flammable liquid with an
ether-like odor (Creaser et al., 2000). Its molecular
weight is 58.1, its melting point is -112.13C, and its
boiling point is 34.23C. Propylene oxide has a
specific gravity of 0.8304 at 20C/20C and an
octanol-water partition coefficient of 0.03 (Sinha et
al., 2003). It is soluble in water and miscible with
acetone, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, diethyl ether,
and ethanol. Propylene oxide is very reactive,
particularly with chlorine, ammonia, strong oxidants,
and acids. It may polymerize explosively when heated
or involved in a fire (Buyevskaya et al., 2000).
Propylene oxide is used primarily as a chemical
intermediate in the production of polyurethane polyols
(60% to 65%), propylene glycols (20% to 25%),
glycol ethers (3% to 5%), and specialty chemicals
(Greben et al., 2005). Polyurethane polyols are used to
make polyurethane foams; whereas, propylene glycols
are primarily used to make unsaturated polyester
resins for the textile and construction industries
(CEFIC, 2005). Propylene glycols are also used in
drugs, cosmetics, solvents and emollients in food,
plasticizers, heat transfer and hydraulic fluids, and
antifreezes (Rihko-Struckmann et al., 2004). In
addition, propylene oxide may be used in fumigation
chambers for the sterilization of packaged foods and
as a pesticide. Approximately 70% of it is used as
polypropylene glycol in the raw materials for
urethane, and the remainder is used as propylene
glycol in the raw materials for unsaturated polyesters,
food product additives and cosmetics (Valbert et al.,
1993). The major application of PO is shown in Fig.
1.
PO production methods that have been
industrialized up to this point can be roughly divided
into two methodologies first chlorohydrins process
and the second is hydroperoxide process. In 1999, the
production capacity was distributed evenly between
these two processes; however, because of the
environmental impacts of the chlorohydrins process,
the most recently built plants are all using
hydroperoxide process technologies (Wang et al.,
2004). However, a disadvantage of the hydroperoxide
processes is the production, in a fixed ratio, of a
coproduct (either styrene or tert-butyl alcohol,
depending on which variant of the hydroperoxide
process is applied) (Bartolome et al., 1975). Because
these co-products are produced in a volume that is 3
times larger than that of propene oxide, the economy
of the process is primarily dominated by the market of
the co-product. A major research effort has been made
in the development of alternative direct epoxidation
Sao and Sahu
Comparative Study of Packed Bed Reactor and Fluidized Bed Reactor for the Production of Propylene Oxide
2
processes for the production of propene oxide (Tullo,
2005).
Due to lack of technical problem the production
may be affected. In this study compared the efficiency
of packed bed reactor with fluidized bed reactor for
the production of propylene oxide. The effect of
catalysis and length of tube was studied for packed
bed reactor as well as cost estimation was also
calculated.


Fig. 1: Major application of propylene oxide

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Material

Propylene oxide is an organic compound with the
molecular formula CH
3
CHCH
2
O. Propylene oxide is a
colourless, low-boiling, highly volatile liquid with a
sweet, ether-like odour and moderately toxic. It is
flammable and reactive, so storage and unloading
areas must be specifically designed and monitored.
This compound is sometimes called 1,2-propylene
oxide to distinguish it from its isomer 1,3-propylene
oxide, better known as oxetane. Its other common
names are 1,2Epoxypropane, Propene epoxide,
Propene oxide. This colourless volatile liquid is
produced on a large scale industrially, its major
application being its use for the production of
polyether polyols for use in making polyurethane
plastics. It is chiral epoxide, although it commonly
used as a racemic mixture (Trent, 2001).

2.2. Methodology (Hydrogen peroxide)

Propene oxide is currently produced using two
different types of commercial processes: the
chlorohydrin process and the hydroperoxide process
Hydroperoxide processes are based on the
peroxidation of an alkane to an alkyl-hydroperoxide.
These alkyl-hydroperoxides then react with propene,
producing propene oxide and an alcohol. A
characteristic of these processes is that, besides
propene oxide, a coproduct is produced in a fixed
ratio, usually 2-4 times the amount of propene oxide
produced. Currently, two variants of this process are
applied commercially. The first is the propene oxide-
styrene monomer (PO-SM, also commonly
abbreviated as SMPO) process (60% of the
hydroperoxide plants use this version) (Pell and
Korchak, 1969; Dubner and Cochran, 1993; Van and
Sluis, 2003). In this process, ethylbenzene is oxidized
to ethylbenzene hydroperoxide, which reacts with
propene to produce propene oxide and R-phenyl
ethanol. The R-phenyl ethanol is then dehydrated to
produce styrene. The second process in use is the
propene oxide-tert-butyl alcohol (PO-TBA) process.
In this process, isobutane is oxidized to tert-butyl
hydroperoxide (TBHP), which reacts with propene to
produce propene oxide and tert-butyl alcohol. This
can be dehydrated to isobutene or converted directly
with methanol to methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE).
International Journal of Scientific Research in Chemical Engineering, 1(1), pp. 1-8, 2014
3
Although other combination processes are possible,
no others have been applied so far (Richey, 1994).
Other possibilities include, for example, acetaldehyde
to acetic acid, 2-propanol to acetone, isopentane (via
tert-pentyl alcohol) to isoprene, cumene (via
dimethylphenyl methanol) to R-methylstyrene, and
cyclohexene (via cyclohexanol) to cyclohexanone
(Kalich et al., 1993). Characteristics of the
hydroperoxide processes are that they are selective
and produce far less waste than the chlorohydrin
process. However, the major disadvantage of the
hydroperoxide processes is that a fixed amount of
coproduct is always produced. Because the markets
for propene oxide and the coproducts are not linked, a
problem could arise, should the demand for one of the
products collapse. Since the use of MTBE as a fuel
additive is becoming less favorable, the latest plants
that have been built using a hydroperoxide process are
all of the PO-SM type (Hayashi et al., 1998). Figure 2
schematically demonstrates the PO-SM process. The
basic principle of the PO-TBA process is similar to
that of the PO-SM process, so both processes are
discussed simultaneously (Cisneros et al., 1995). The
first reactor converts the ethylbenzene or isobutene
noncatalytically to its corresponding hydroperoxide
by direct liquid-phase oxidation, using oxygen or air.
The oxidation is usually performed in a bubble
column at 400 K and 30 bar when isobutane is used,
or 423 K and 2 bars in the case of ethylbenzene.


Fig. 2: Flow diagram for production of propylene oxide by hydrogen peroxide method (Nijhuis et al., 2006)

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1. Packed bed reactor

3.1.1. Design of packed bed reactor

It can be calculated by

Where, W = Weight of catalyst, F
A
0
= Molar Flow
Rate, XA = Conversion, -rA = Rate of Reaction
W/ F
A
o
= 2.3965x 10
6


W= weight of Catalyst = 2.39510619.14 = 4.5104
Kg
Weight of catalyst can be given by formula
W= c V (1-)
Where, c = Density of catalyst =3.35103 Kg/m3, V
= Volume of Reactor, = Porosity of Catalyst Bed =
0.3, W = c V (1- ), 4.5104= 3.35103V
(1-0.3), V = 19.18 m3 =677 ft3
Sao and Sahu
Comparative Study of Packed Bed Reactor and Fluidized Bed Reactor for the Production of Propylene Oxide
4

It was decided to use a bank of 2 inch schedule 80
pipes in a parallel that are 60 ft in length. For pipe
schedule 80, the cross sectional area is 0.0205 ft2 the
number of pipe necessary is

n =
Volume of the Reactor Cross sectional Area x Length
Number of tubes in the reactor is 550

3.1.2. Pressure Drop in the Reactor

Most gas phase reaction is takes place in packed bed
reactor. Equation most used to calculate pressure drop
in packed bed reactor is Ergun equation











Where, P = Pressure, P0 = Inlet Pressure = 10 atm,
= Porosity = (Volume of Void / Total Bed Volume)
= 0.3, 1- = (Volume of Solid / Total Bed Volume)
= 0.7, gc = Conversion Factor = 1 (in the metric
system), dp = Diameter of Particle in the bed = 0.005
m, = Viscosity of gas passing through bed =
0.0942x10
-3
, z = Length of Reactor =60 ft = 18.3 m,
c = Density of catalyst =3.35103, G = x u =
Superficial Mass Velocity = 2931 Kg / (m
2
s),
Therefore,
= 0.0815
(P/Po)=0.15
P=1.5atm
Hence the pressure drop (P) = 8.5 atm

3.1.3. Effect of catalysis weight:

The effect of catalysis weight on conversion is shown
in Fig. 3. It was found that the conversion was
increase with increase in increase in weight of
catalysis. When the catalysis loading was 1, 2, 3, 4,
the conversion was 12, 23, 30 and 45% was observed.
Almost 98 percentage of conversion was found to at
5.5kg of catalysis. Then it maintained constant for the
conversion of long time (Diakov et al., 2002).


Fig. 3: Effect of catalysis loading on conversion

3.1.4. Effect of length on conversion

The effect of length of tube on the conversion of
propylene is shown in Fig. 4. It was found that
conversion was increase with increase in length of
tube (Ramos et al., 2000). The maximum conversion
was 90% found at 18 ft of tube length in reactor. The
total number of tube in the reactor is 550.

To
T
o
o
bulk c
o
F
F
T
T
P
P
A dW
dP

|
(
(

+

= G
D D
G
p p o
o
75 . 1
) 1 ( 150 ) 1 (
3
|
|
|
|
c
i
W o i
A
M F
G
i

=
,
International Journal of Scientific Research in Chemical Engineering, 1(1), pp. 1-8, 2014
5

Fig. 4: Effect of tube length on conversion

3.2. Design of Fluidized Bed Reactor

3.2.1. The design equation for Fluidized Bed
Reactor is same as for CSTR

By solving above equation analytically, we can find
the concentration profile with respect to time constant.
That concentration profile shown in figure below.

Conversion in the packed bed reactor is,

Weight of catalyst in the reactor calculated by formula
W= c V (1- )
Assume Porosity = 0.6
W = 3350 19.18 (1-0.65) = 2.2510
4
Kg

3.2.2. Effect of concentration on time

The effect of concentration on the reaction time is
shown in Fig. 5. It was found that the concentration of
component C was 7.2 mole/liters maximum at 250min
of reaction time. The concentration of component A
was 3.5mole/liters at zero time and the concentration
of component was 1.5 mole/liters at 250 min (Leveles,
2002).


Fig. 5: Effect of concentration time



Sao and Sahu
Comparative Study of Packed Bed Reactor and Fluidized Bed Reactor for the Production of Propylene Oxide
6
3.3. Cost estimation

3.3.1. Packed Bed Reactor

Weight of Material Required Tube
= 2 r L Thickness Density Number
= 427185 lb
Weight of Material Required Shell
= 2 r L Thickness Density
= 10010.8 lb
Weight of Material Required Head
= 4090 lb
Total weight of Material required
= 427185 10010.8 + 4090
= 441288 lb
= 200164 Kg
Actual weight of Material required
= 200164+ 20% Extra weight
= 240169 Kg
Cost of Material required
= 240.169 tone 887 $/tones
= 213054.56 $
= Rs. 1.022610
7

Cost of Catalyst Required
= We i g h t of Catalyst Cost per kg of Catalyst
= 4 . 5 10
4
40(Assume)
= R s . 1.8 10
6

Miscellaneous Cost = 100000 Rs/yr
1) Total Equipment Cost =
1.022610
7
+ 1.8 10
6



+100000
=
Rs. 12.12 10
6

2) Insulation Cost = 15 %
Equipment Cost
=
Rs. 1.818 10
6

3) Piping and Instrumentation
= 10% Equipment Cost
=
Rs. 12.12 10
5

Total Reactor Cost = 12.12 10
6
+1.818 10
6
+12.12
10
5
+ 60000 = Rs. 1.521 10
7


3.3.2. Fluidized Bed Reactor

Weight of Material Required Shell
= 2 r L Thickness Density
= 3823.95 lb
Weight of Material Required Head
= 8112.2 lb
Total weight of Material required
= 3823.2 + 8112.2
= 11935.4 lb
= 5 4 1 3 . 8 Kg
Actual weight of Material required
= 5413.8+ 20% Extra weight
= 6 4 9 6 . 5 6 Kg Cost of Material required
= 6.49656 tone 887 $/tone
= $ 57.62.45
= Rs. 2.76510
5
Cost of Catalyst Required
= Weight of Catalyst Cost per kg of Catalyst
= 2.2510
4
Kg 40 (assumed)
= Rs. 9 10
5

Miscellaneous Cost = 100000 Rs/yr
1) Total Equipment Cost = 2.76510
5
+ 9 10
5
Rs
+100000 = Rs. 1.27 10
6

2) Insulation Cost = 15 % Equipment Cost
= Rs. 1.914 10
5

3) Piping and Instrumentation = 10% Equipment Cost
= Rs. 1.27 10
5

4) Land
= Rs. 60000
Total Reactor Cost = 1.27 10
6
+1.914 10
5
+1.27
10
5
+ 60000 = Rs. 1.6484 10
6

4. CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated that packed bed reactor is
more suitable as compared to fluidized bed reactor.
The conversion factor with respect catalysis loading
and length of the tube found to be approximately 100
percentages. Packed bed reactor shows good
efficiency at 550 numbers of tubes, 8.5 Atm pressure
drops, 98% of conversion at 5.5 Kg catalysis and 90%
conversion 18feet. The fixed bed reactor shows upto
80% conversion. The hydroperoxide processed will
maintain a very important position as long as there is a
high demand for their coproducts. Considering the
huge market for styrene, especially, the PO-SM
process will be in use for a long time. The new
processes developed fulfilled the requirement.
Improvements are being made continuously and new
processes to replace the two existing processes are
beginning to be applied.

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Sao and Sahu
Comparative Study of Packed Bed Reactor and Fluidized Bed Reactor for the Production of Propylene Oxide
8



Mr. Abhishek Sao was finial year Chemical Engineering student in department of chemical
engineering, IT, Guru Ghasi Das University, Bilaspur (CG), India in 2011. His specialization is
process engineering.












Mr Omprakash Sahu was graduated from department of Chemical Engineering, ITGGV Bilaspur
(CG) India in the year of 2003.His specialization in Chemical, Energy and Environment