Axial dispersion in packed bed reactors involving viscoinelastic and viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluids

Axial dispersion is an important parameter in the performance of packed bed reactors. A lot of fluids exhibit non-Newtonian behaviour but the effect of rheological parameters on axial dispersion is not available in literature. The effect of rheology on axial dispersion has been analysed for viscoinelastic and viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluids. Aqueous solutions of carboxymethyl cellulose and polyacrylamide have been chosen to represent viscoinelastic and viscoelastic liquid-phases. Axial dispersion has been measured in terms of Bo_L number. The single parameter axial dispersion model has been applied to analyse RTD response curve. The Bo_L numbers were observed to increase with increase in liquid flow rate and consistency index ‘K’ for viscoinelastic as well as viscoelastic fluids. Bodenstein correlation for Newtonian fluids proposed has been modified to account for the effect of fluid rheology. Further, Weissenberg number is introduced to quantify the effect of viscoelasticity.