Use of CFD for pressure drop, liquid saturation and wetting predictions in trickle bed reactors for different catalyst particle shapes

•Multiphase flow simulation in Trickle-Bed Reactors (TBR) using the Volume-Of-Fluid approach (VOF)•Pressure drop, liquid saturation and wetting efficiency prediction are investigated.•Three different catalyst shape particle loadings: spheres, trilobes and quadrilobes are studied.•Satisfactory predictions of hydrodynamic parameters: two-phase pressure drop, liquid saturation and wetting efficiency.•New wetting efficiency correlation accounting for gas velocity and particle shape effects.