This book gives a comprehensive explanation of what governs the breakage of extruded materials, and what techniques are used to measure it. The breakage during impact aka collision is explained using basic laws of nature allowing readers to determine the handling severity of catalyst manufacturing equipment and the severity of entire plants. This information can then be used to improve on the architecture of existing plants and how to design grass-roots plants. The book begins with a summary of particle forming techniques in the particle technology industry. It covers extrusion technology in more detail since extrusion is one of the workhorses for particle manufacture. A section is also dedicated on how to describe transport and chemical reaction in such particulates for of course their final use. It presents the fundamentals of the study of breakage by relating basic laws in different fields (mechanics and physics) and this leads to two novel dimensionless groups that govern breakage. These topics are then apply these topics to R&D scale-up and manufacturing and shows how this approach is directly applicable.
Table of Contents
About the Author ix
Acknowledgments xi
Foreword xiii
1 Catalyst Preparation Techniques and Equipment 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Forming of Catalysts 4
1.3 Impregnation and Drying 12
1.4 Rotary Calcination 13
1.5 From the Laboratory to a Commercial Plant 29
Nomenclature 29
References 30
2 Extrusion Technology 35
2.1 Background 35
2.2 Rheology 36
2.3 Extrusion 47
Nomenclature 57
References 59
3 The Aspect Ratio of an Extruded Catalyst: An In-depth Study 61
3.1 General 61
3.2 Introduction to Catalyst Strength and Catalyst Breakage 63
3.3 Mechanical Strength of Catalysts 67
3.4 Experimental Measurement of Mechanical Strength 76
3.5 Breakage by Collision 88
3.6 Breakage by Stress in a Fixed Bed 129
3.7 Breakage in Contiguous Equipment 145
3.8 Statistical Methods Applied to Manufacturing Materials 158
Nomenclature 159
Greek Symbols 161
Subscripts 162
References 162
4 Steady-state Diffusion and First-order Reaction in Catalyst Networks 165
4.1 Introduction 165
4.2 Classic Continuum Approach 169
4.3 The Network Approach 171
Nomenclature 270
Greek Symbols 270
References 271
Appendix 4.1 Diffusion in a simple network 272
Appendix 4.2 Property of the semi-inverse 272
Appendix 4.3 Diffusion and reaction in a simple network 273
Appendix 4.4 Matrix properties for diffusion and reaction in a simple network 274
Appendix 4.5 Perturbation in a simple network 274
Appendix 4.6 A random variable 275
Appendix 4.7 Diffusion along a string of nodes 275
Appendix 4.8 Diffusion in a rectangular strip with an equal number of nodes 276
Appendix 4.9 Diffusion in a rectangular strip with an unequal number of nodes 277
Appendix 4.10 Diffusion and first-order reaction in a very deep network of 500 layers deep and five nodes per layer 279
Appendix 4.11 Diffusion and first-order reaction 280
Index 281
