Onset of slugging fluidization in supercritical water fluidized bed

The supercritical-water fluidized bed(SCWFB)is a reactor for coal and biomass gasification without pollutant emission.We carried out a series of experiments in a SCWFB,and a dual-capacitance probe measurement system was applied to measure the hydrodynamics of slugs,such as the slug frequency,chord length,and rising velocity.Four groups of Geldart-B particles with different mean diameters were fluidized by supercritical water with a system pressure of 20-27MPa and at 410-570℃.The minimum slugging Reynolds number increases logarithmically with Archimedes number and a predicting correlation of the minimum slugging fluidization velocity in the SCWFB is presented:Rems=32908.84 ln(Ar^0.55+260376.65)-410361.90.The relative error of the above correlation was within ±15% and the averaged relative error was 7.5%.The effect of operating conditions on the minimum slugging fluidization velocity is discussed.This research provides useful guidance for scaling-up design and for determining the optimum range of operating conditions in the SCWFB.