The oxidation of ethene in an empty and packed tubular wall reactor operating in the reaction- and diffusion-controlled regimes

The behaviour of the empty and packed isothermal tubular active wall reactor operating under diffusion- or reaction-limited conditions has been analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. By various numerical procedures the mass transport equations have been solved for the case of a first-order reaction taking place at the tube wall, either laminar or plug flow prevailing in the reactor. Using the platinum-catalyzed air oxidation of small concentrations of ethene, it has been found that in the laminar-turbulent transition region as well as in the laminar flow region the theoretically calculated and experimentally measured profiles agree well. Although, also for the packed tubular wall reactor, the calculated and measured mass transfer coefficients are in excellent agreement when assuming a radial Peclet number of 7.5, the values are lower than those reported recently in the literature.