What is the Effect on Catalyst Effectiveness Factor?
The effectiveness factor (η) is another crucial parameter that describes the ratio of the actual reaction rate within a porous catalyst particle to the reaction rate if the entire particle were at the surface concentration of the reactant. The effectiveness factor is related to the Thiele modulus as follows:
For small Thiele modulus (reaction-rate limited), η approaches 1, indicating that the entire catalyst volume is effectively utilized. For large Thiele modulus (diffusion-limited), η becomes much less than 1, signifying that only a fraction of the catalyst volume near the surface is effectively utilized.
