Two-phase simulation of gas-solid fluidized bed reactors by tanks-in-series model

Rouzbeh Jafari, University of Tehran
Rahmat Sotudeh-Gharebagh, University of Tehran
Navid Mostoufi, University of Tehran

Abstract

A sequeantail modular method for the simulation of fluidized bed reactors is proposed. The model consists of two submodels, hydrodynamic and reaction submodel. The hydrodynamic submodel is developed based on the dynamic two-phase model, which considers existence of particles in the bubbles and emulsion not being in minimum fluidization. This sub-model allows the concentration of particles in the bubble and emulsion phase to be determined. The reaction submodel considers the typical highly exothermic reactions reported in the literture. These two submodels are combined together so that the fluidized bed reactor to be presented. This model is developed based on a proper combination of CSTRs and PFRs, which reflects the real physical phenomena occuring within a fluidized bed reactor. The fluidized bed eractor is divided into several stages. The number of stages is determined based on the concept drived from the experimental data reported in the literature. Results of this model are compared with the experimental data and it was shown that the model provides appropriate explanation of the performance of the fluidized bed reactors based on this sequential modular approach. The results of the work may be used to predict the conversion in the fluidized bed reactor based on dynamic behavior of buuble-emulsion phase recently proposed in the fluidization literature.