Patent ID: 7449037

Claim:
In a method for carrying out endothermic or exothermic gas phase reactions by using a tube bundle reactor with a tube bundle of catalyst-filled reaction tubes, the method comprising the following steps: (a) introducing only one reaction gas mixture into the reaction tubes; (b) dividing the reaction gas mixture flow flowing through each of the reaction tubes into at least two partial flows, each partial flow having the same composition; (c) feeding each partial flow at a different point along the catalyst filling with an existing flow resistance; the improvement comprising the additional following steps: (d) feeding each partial flow at points along the catalyst filling at which the velocity of flow of the reaction gas mixture in the catalyst filling falls below a predetermined value; (e) determining the desired partial flow volume for each partial flow (V 1 , V 2 , V 3 , V 4 ); (f) calculating the pressure at the point of the first division of the reaction gas mixture; (g) calculating the pressure in the catalyst filling at the feeding point of each partial flow (V 1 , V 2 , V 3 , V 4 ); and (h) setting of flow resistance for each feeding point in such a way that the flow resistance at the desired partial flow volume corresponds to the pressure difference between the pressures determined in steps (e) and (f).