Continuous Hydrogenation of L-Arabinose and D-Galactose in a Mini Packed Bed Reactor

The continuous hydrogenation of a mixture of L-arabinose and D-galactose over a Ru/C catalyst was investigated in a miniaturized packed bed reactor. The reaction is one important step of the transformation process of the naturally occurring hemicellulose arabinogalactan (AG) into valuable sugar alcohols. Process intensification was accomplished by reducing the reactor dimensions to a few millimeters, thus leading to better mass and heat transfer performance. The effect of temperature, pressure and liquid flow rate on the yield as well as byproduct formation will be discussed. Based on a kinetic model derived from batch experiments, a model of the continuous reactor was developed and used for scale-up purposes.