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US 4,684,456 AGranted
Control of bed expansion in expanded bed reactor
AssigneeLummus Crest, Inc.
InventorsRoger P. Van Driesen, William R. Adams, John Caspers, Mario Baldasarri, Harold Trimble
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In an expanded bed reactor, the expansion of the bed is automatically controlled by automatically changing the rate of speed of a recycle pump for the reactor. The bed is preferably provided with both high and low level bed detectors, and a further detector for determining abnormally high levels.
Claims14
In a hydrogenation process wherein a fluid is recycled from an upper portion of a reactor to a portion of the reactor below an expanded bed of catalyst by a recycle pump, the improvement comprising:
- automatically controlling the expansion of the expanded bed of catalyst by automatically increasing the rate of speed of the recycle pump when the expanded bed is below a first level in the reactor until the bed reaches the first level;
- thereafter automatically maintaining a substantially constant speed for the pump until the expanded bed of catalyst reaches a second level in the reactor which is higher than the first level;
- automatically decreasing the rate of speed of the recycle pump until the expanded bed falls below the second level;
- and thereafter maintaining a substantially constant rate of speed of the recycle pump until the expanded bed falls below the first level.
1 more element
A reaction system, comprising:
- a reactor for an expanded catalyst bed;
- a recycle pump for recycling fluid from a top portion of the reactor to a portion of the reactor below a catalyst bed within the reactor for passage upwardly through a catalyst bed within the reactor;
- first and second bed level detection means, said second bed level detection means being positioned at a higher level in the reactor than the first bed level detection means;
- means for automatically controlling the speed of the recycle pump;
- means for providing first and second signals from the first and second bed level detection means to the means for automatically controlling the speed of the recycle pump, said means for providing the first signal and the means for automatically controlling the speed of the recycle pump incrementally increasing the speed of the recycle pump when an expanded catalyst bed is below the first bed level detection means until an expanded bed of catalyst reaches the first bed level detection means and thereafter automatically maintaining a substantially constant recycle pump speed until an expanded catalyst bed reaches the second bed level detection means and the means for providing the second signal and the means for automatically controlling the speed of the recycle pump automatically incrementally decreasing the speed of the recycle pump when an expanded catalyst bed reaches the second bed level detection means and thereafter maintaining a substantially constant recycle pump speed until an expanded catalyst bed falls below the first bed level detection means.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.