Hypothesis
The exothermic Fischer–Tropsch reaction (as well as manyother applications for which bubble column reactors are pre-ferred) requires heat exchanging internals that cover ∼25 ± 3%(Maretto and Piccolo (1998), Youssef (2010) and Youssef et al.(2013b)) of the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the reactor toremove the resulting heat generated and maintain a safe oper-ation. The positions of these tubes might be configured inmultiple arrangements. Can they be arranged so that they ineffect form small internal bubble columns within the largescale reactor walls? If so, can they, in such a configuration,mimic the behavior of columns of the same small diame-ter having a solid wall instead? The answer to this questionforms the basis for the hypothesis of our proposed method-ology for minimizing the risks associated with scaling whichdiffers from above stated examples in terms of design, con-figuration and efficacy. In other words, it is to be investigatedwhether the commercial reactor can be formed of multiplesmaller scale reactors in parallel created by means of the nec-essary heat exchanging internals. Therefore, controlling theeffect of scale using heat exchanging tubes by means of reactorcompartmentalization is proposed in this study.