PHASE HOLDUP AND LIQUID DISPERSION IN GAS-LIQUID-SOLID CIRCULATING FLUIDIZED BEDS

Axial and radial profiles of gas and solids holdups have been studied in agas-liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed at 140mm i.d..Experimental results indicate that the axialand radial profiles of gas and solids holdups are more uniform than those in a conventionalfluidized bed.Axial and radial liquid dispersion coefficients in the gas-liquid-solid circulating fluidizedbed are investigated for the first time.It is found that axial and radial liquid dispersioncoefficients increases with increaes in gas velocity and solids holdup.The liquid velocity has littleinfluence on the axial liquid dispersion coefficient,but would adversely affect the redial liquiddispersion coefficient.It can be concluded that the gas-liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed hasadvantages such as better interphase contact and lower liquid dispersion along the axial directionover the expanded bed.

Experiment and simulation on the pyrite removal from the recirculating load of pulverizer with a dilute phase gas-solid fluidized bed

In order to reduce the energy consumption and subsequent air pollution of coal-fired power station, based on the analysis to size and density distribution of particles from the recirculating load of the classifier of pulverizer, the separation experiment on sampling material from power plant with a dilute phase fluidized bed to remove pyrite and other minerals and numerical simulation on the separation process were done. The results show that the minimum fluidization velocity is 1.62 cm/s. Pyrite and other minerals in the material are separated. Ash of the upper and bottom layer material account for 33.34% and 73.42% respectively and sulfur content occupy 1.12% and 8.96% respectively. Scanning electron microscopy and spectroscopy tests show that sulfur in the bottom material exist in the form of pyrite. Numerical simulation on the flow field form of the dilute phase separation bed with gas-solid two phase and particle motion verifies the experimental results.

Characteristics of high-sulfate wastewater treatment by two-phase anaerobic digestion process with Jet-loop anaerobic fluidized bed

A new anaerobic reactor, Jet-loop anaerobic fluidized bed （JLAFB）, was designed for treating high-sulfate wastewater. The treatment characteristics, including the effect of influent COD/SO42 ratio and alkalinity and sulfide inhibition in reactors, were discussed for a JLAFB and a general anaerobic fiuidized bed （AFB） reactor used as sulfate-reducing phase and methane-producing phase, respectively, in two-phase anaerobic digestion process. The formation of granules in the two reactors was also examined. The results indicated that COD and sulfate removal had different demand of influent COD/SO4^2- ratios. When total COD removal was up to 85%, the ratio was only required up to 1.2, whereas, total sulfate removal up to 95% required it exceeding 3.0. The alkalinity in the two reactors increased linearly with the growth of influent alkalinity. Moreover, the change of influent alkalinity had no significant effect on pH and volatile fatty acids （VFA） in the two reactors. Influent alkalinity kept at 400-500 mg/L could meet the requirement of the treating process. The JLAFB reactor had great advantage in avoiding sulfide and free-H2S accumulation and toxicity inhibition on microorganisms. When sulfate loading rate was up to 8. 1 kg/（m^3.d）, the sulfide and free-H2S concentrations in JLAFB reactor were 58.6 and 49.7 mg/L, respectively. Furthermore, the granules, with offwhite color, ellipse shape and diameters of 1.0-3.0 mm, could be developed in JLAFB reactor. In granules, different groups of bacteria were distributed in different layers, and some inorganic metal compounds such as Fe, Ca, Mg etc. were found.

Pressure Drop of Liquid–Solid Two-Phase Flow in the Vertical Tube Bundle of a Cold-Model Circulating Fluidized Bed Evaporator

A cold-model vertical multi-tube circulating fluidized bed evaporator was designed and built to conduct a visualization study on the pressure drop of a liquid–solid two-phase flow and the corresponding particle distribution.Water and polyformaldehyde particle(POM)were used as the liquid and solid phases,respectively.The effects of operating parameters such as the amount of added particles,circulating flow rate,and particle size were systematically investigated.The results showed that the addition of the particles increased the pressure drop in the vertical tube bundle.The maximum pressure drop ratios were 18.65%,21.15%,18.00%,and 21.15%within the experimental range of the amount of added particles for POM1,POM2,POM3,and POM4,respectively.The pressure drop ratio basically decreased with the increase in the circulating flow rate but fluctuated with the increase in the amount of added particles and particle size.The difference in pressure drop ratio decreased with the increase in the circulating flow rate.As the amount of added particles increased,the difference in pressure drop ratio fluctuated at low circulating flow rate but basically decreased at high circulating flow rate.The pressure drop in the vertical tube bundle accounted for about 70%of the overall pressure drop in the up-flow heating chamber and was the main component of the overall pressure within the experimental range.Three-dimensional phase diagrams were established to display the variation ranges of the pressure drop and pressure drop ratio in the vertical tube bundle corresponding to the operating parameters.The research results can provide some reference for the application of the fluidized bed heat transfer technology in the industry.

Axial Liquid Dispersion in Gas-Liquid-Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed

The effects of liquid viscosities, solid circulating rates, liquid and gas velocities and phase holdups on the axial dispersion coefficient, Dax, were investigated in a gas-liquid-solid circulating fluidized bed (GLSCFB).Liquid viscosity promotes the axial liquid backmixing when solid particles and gas bubbles are present. Increases in gas velocities and solid circulating rates lead to higher Dax. The effects of liquid velocity on Dax are associated with liquid viscosity. Compared with conventional expanded beds, the GLSCFBs hold less axial liquid dispersion,approaching ideal plug-flow reactors.

STUDIES OF THE EVAPORATION AND SCALING MITIGATION IN A RECIRCULATING THREE-PHASE FLUIDIZED BED

Heat transfer of liquid evaporation was studied in a recirculating three-phase fluidized bedin which an inert gas serving as'carrying gas'was introduced.The gas velocities,particle sizes,par-ticle densities and particle concentrations in the liquid were examined.Heat fluxes were measured aswell.Significant enhancement in heat transfer was resulted when an inert gas and solid particles wereintroduced into the flow boiling liquid.Scaling mitigation was to be expected in the process.

Photocatalytic oxidation of Rhodamine B in a three-phase internal circulating fluidized bed with TiO_2/SiO_2 as photocatalyst

A novel photoreactor of three-phase internal circulating fluidized bed was applied to the degradation of Rhodamine B with TiO2/SiO2 catalyst and TiO2 powder,respectively.The experimental results showed that the photocatalytic activity of TiO2/SiO2 catalyst was much higher than that of TiO2 powder under the same condition,and the half life of Rhodamine B using TiO2/SiO2 was 9.5 min,much lower than 63 min when using TiO2 powder.Moreover,TiO2/SiO2 had a good adsorption capacity of Rhodamine B,which played an important role on degradation.In addition,it was found that the degradation kinetics of Rodamine B with TiO2/SiO2 catalyst did not follow the first order reaction.The degradation kinetics model in terms of the adsorption process of catalyst and the analytic solution of reactant degradation rate in liquid phase could be deduced,which consisted of two parts.The first part was due to the adsorption,while the second part was due to the photocatalysis.In the beginning of the reaction,the adsorption process was dominant.However,when the adsorption achieved a balance,the degradation of Rhodamine B in liquid phase and solid phase was mainly caused by photocatalysis and the degradation kinetics model conformed to the first order reaction.

Recovery of alumina from circulating fluidized bed combustion Al-rich fly ash using mild hydrochemical process

To utilize CFBC Al-rich fly ash, a mild hydrochemical extraction process was investigated for recovery of alumina. An alumina extraction efficiency of 92.31%was attained using a 45%NaOH solution, an original caustic ratio （molar ratio of Na2O to Al2O3 in the sodium aluminate solution） of 25, a molar ratio of CaO to SiO2 in the fly ash of 1.1, a liquid volume to solid mass ratio of 9, a reaction temperature of 280 ℃, and a residence time of 1 h when treating fly ash with an alumina to silica mass ratio （A/S） of 0.78 and an alumina content of 32.43%. Additionally, the alumina leaching mechanism was explored via structural and chemical analysis, which revealed that after alkaline digestion, the main solid phase containing silica was NaCaHSiO4 with a theoretical A/S of zero.

Implementation of a Demoisturization and Devolatilization Model in Multi-Phase Simulation of a Hybrid Entrained-Flow and Fluidized Bed Mild Gasifier

A mild gasification process has been implemented to provide an alternative form of clean coal technology called the Integrated Mild Gasification Combined Cycle (IMGCC), which can be utilized to build a new, highly efficient, and compact power plant or to retrofit an existing coal-fired power plant in order to achieve lower emissions and significantly improved thermal efficiency. The core technology of the mild gasification power plant lies on the design of a compact and effective mild gasifier that can produce synthesis gases with high energy volatiles through a hybrid system: utilizing the features of both entrained-flow and fluidized bed gasifiers. To aid in the design of the mild gasifier, a computational model has been implemented to investigate the thermal-flow and gasification process inside this mild gasifier using the commercial CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) solver ANSYS/FLUENT. The Eulerian-Eulerian method is employed to model both the primary phase (air) and the secondary phase (coal particles). However, the Eulerian-Eulerian model used in the software does not facilitate any built-in devolatilization model. The objective of this study is therefore to implement a devolatilization model (along with demoisturization) and incorporate it into the existing code. The Navier-Stokes equations and seven species transport equations are solved with three heterogeneous (gas-solid) and two homogeneous (gas-gas) global gasification reactions. Implementation of the complete model starts from adding demoisturization first, then devolatilization, and then adding one chemical equation at a time until finally all reactions are included in the multiphase flow. The result shows that the demoisturization and devolatilization models are successfully incorporated and a large amount of volatiles are preserved as high-energy fuels in the syngas stream without being further cracked or reacted into lighter gases. The overall results are encouraging but require future experimental data for verification.

Dynamic Simulation of Volume Fraction and Density Solid Phase Effect on Phase Hold-Up in 3 Phase Fluidize Bed Column through CFD

The gas-liquid-solid fluidized bed has emerged in recent years as one of the most promising devices for three-phase operation. Selection and design is one of them in parameter in the performance of three phase system. This paper focuses on volume fraction and density effect on the phases hold-up in a 3 phase fluidize bed column containing liquid phase with 100 cm height and 20 cm diameter, in this case the solid phase with 0.15, 0.25, 0.35 volume fraction and density 2470, 3000, 4000, 5000 m3 dispersion into liquid phase and the gas phase enter the column through a sparger of 2 cm diameter with 0.02 m/s velocities. The results show as the solid phase volume fraction increases from 0.02 to 0.08 m/s. The gas hold-up decreases and solid hold-up increases. Solid phase density increases, so solid phase hold-up decreases and gas hold-up decreases.

Surface-particle-emulsion heat transfer model between fluidized bed and horizontal immersed tube

A mathematical model, surface-particle-emulsion heat transfer model, ispresented by considering voidage variance in emulsion in the vicinity of an immersed surface. Heattransfer near the surface is treated by dispersed particles touching the surface and through theemulsion when the distance from the surface is greater than the diameter of a particle. A film withan adjustable thickness which separates particles from the surface is not introduced in this model.The coverage ratio of particles on the surface is calculated by a stochastic model of particlepacking density on a surface. By comparison of theoretical solutions with experimental data fromsome references, the mathematical model shows better qualitative and quantitative prediction forlocal heat transfer coefficients around a horizontal immersed tube in a fluidized bed.

Hydrodynamics of three-phase fluidization of homogeneous ternary mixture in a conical conduit-Experimental and statistical analysis

Hydrodynamics of conical fluidized bed differ from that of columnar beds by the fact that a velocity gradient exists along the axial direction of the bed.The gas–liquid–solid fluidized bed has emerged in recent years as one of the most promising devices for three-phase operations.Such a device is of considerable industrial importance as evident from its wide applications in chemical,refining,petrochemical,biochemical processing,pharmaceutical and food industries.To explore this,a series of experiments have been carried out for homogeneous well-mixed ternary mixtures of dolomite of varying compositions in a three-phase conical fluidized bed.The hydrodynamic characteristics determined included the bed pressure drop,bed fluctuation and bed expansion ratios.The single and combined effects of operating parameters such as superficial gas velocity,superficial liquid velocity,initial static bed height,average particle size and cone angle on the responses have been analyzed using response surface methodology(RSM).A 25 full factorial central composite experimental design has been employed.Analysis of variance(ANOVA) showed a high coefficient of determination value and satisfactory prediction second-order regression models have been derived.Experimental values of bed pressure drop,bed fluctuation and bed expansion ratios have been found to agree well with the developed correlations.

Sensitivity analysis of a dense discrete phase model for 3D simulations of a tapered fluidized bed

This study aims to conduct a sensitivity analysis of closure models and modeling parameters for the Dense Discrete Phase Modeling(DDPM)approach in order to investigate the hydrodynamics of a 3D lab-scale Tapered Fluidized Bed(TFB).The closure models and model parameters under investigation include the gas-solid drag force,viscous models,particle-particle interaction models,restitution coefficient,specularity coefficient,and rebound coefficient.The primary objective of this sensitivity analysis is to optimize the numerical model's performance.The numerical results,in terms of axial and lateral Solid Volume Fraction(SVF)profiles obtained from the sensitivity analysis,indicate that the drag force and restitution coefficient significantly influence the hydrodynamics of the TFB.Properly selecting these parameters could result in the improved performance of the numerical model.However,the sensitivity of turbulence models,particle-particle interaction models,specularity coefficient,and rebound coefficient has a lesser impact on the hydrodynamics results.This work concludes with the recommendation of a set of closure models and modeling parameters that offer the most accurate prediction of the hydrodynamics of the TFB.

Comparative study of two fluid model and dense discrete phase model for simulations of gas-solid hydrodynamics in circulating fluidized beds

Computational fluid dynamics(CFD)has become a valuable tool to study the complex gas-solid hydrodynamics in the circulating fluidized bed(CFB).Based on the two fluid model(TFM)under the Eulerian-Eulerian framework and the dense discrete phase model(DDPM)under the Eulerian-Lagrangian framework,this work conducts the comparative study of the gas-solid hydrodynamics in a CFB riser by these two different models.Results show that DDPM could be used to predict gas-solid hydrodynamics in the circulating fluidized bed,and there are differences between TFM and DDPM,especially in the radial distribution profiles of solid phase.Sensitivity analysis results show that the gas-solid drag model exhibits significant effects on the results for both the two models.The specularity coefficient and the restitution coefficient in the TFM,as well as the reflection coefficient and the parcel number in the DDPM,exhibit less impact on the simulated results.

Gas-liquid mass transfer in the gas-liquid-solid mini fluidized beds

The gas-liquid-solid mini fluidized bed(GLSMFB)combines the advantages of fluidized bed and micro-reactor,and meets the requirements for safety and efficiency of green development of process industry.However,there are few studies on its flow performance and no studies on its mass and heat transfer performance.In this paper,the characteristics of gas-liquid mass transfer in a GLSMFB were studied in order to provide basic guidance for the study of GLSMFB reaction performance and application.Using CO_(2)absorption by NaOH as the model process,the gas-liquid mass transfer performance of GLSMFB was investigated.The results show that the liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient and the gas-liquid interfacial area both increase with the increase of the superficial gas velocity within the experimental parameter range under the same given superficial liquid velocity.At the same ratio of superficial gas to liquid velocity,the liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient increases with the increase of the super-ficial liquid velocity.Fluidized solid particles strengthen the liquid mass transfer process,and the liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient is about 13%higher than that of gas-liquid mini bubble column.

Experimental and numerical investigation of liquid-solid binary fluidized beds： Radioactive particle tracking technique and dense discrete phase model simulations

Liquid-solid binary fluidized beds are widely used in many industries. However, the flow behavior of such beds is not well understood due to the lack of accurate experimental and numerical data. In the current study, the behavior of monodisperse and binary liquid-solid fluidized beds of the same density but dif- ferent sizes is investigated using radioactive particle tracking （RPT） technique and a dense discrete phase model （DDPM）. Experiments and simulations are performed in monodisperse fluidized beds containing two different sizes of glass beads （0.6 and I mm） and a binary fluidized bed of the same particles for vari- ous bed compositions. The results show that both RPT and DDPM can predict the mixing and segregation pattern in liquid-solid binary fluidized beds. The mean velocity predictions of DDPM are in good agree- ment with the experimental findings for both monodisperse and binary fluidized beds. However, the axial root mean square velocity predictions are only reasonable for bigger particles. Particle-particle interac- tions are found to be critical for predicting the flow behavior of solids in liquid-solid binary fluidized beds.

Phase-Plane Invariant Analysis of Pressure Fluctuations in Fluidized Beds

Partial agglomeration is a major problem in fluidized beds. A chaotic analytical method based on the phase-plane invariant of the pressure fluctuations in the fluidized beds has been used to warn of agglomeration at an early stage. Cold tests （no combustion） and hot tests （combustion） in fluidized beds show that the phase-plane invariant of the pressure fluctuations can distinguish the dynamic behavior of fluidized beds with different flow rates in cold tests. With combustion, when the flow rate was kept constant, agglomeration was detected very early by looking at the phase-plane invariant. The phase-plane invariant can be used to distinguish changes in fluidized beds due to changes in the flow rate, agglomeration, or various other factors. Therefore, this reliable agglomeration early warning system can be used for better control of circulating fluidized beds.

Characterization of gas-liquid-solid fluidized beds by S statistics

The hydrodynamics of a gas-liquid-solid fluidized bed was investigated by applying the S statistics method to pressure fluctuations measured under various operating conditions in a laboratory-scale bed. S statistics tests reveal the existence of three transition velocities, especially at low gas velocities. Four distinct fluidization regimes, namely, the compacted bed, agitated bed and coalesced and discrete bubble regimes were detected. A comparison of reconstructed attractors of pressure fluctuations measured at different axial positions along the riser and with various solid loadings showed significant differences in the signals compared before fluidization, especially at minimum liquid agitation velocity. Close to the minimum liquid fluidization velocity and high liquid velocities, the variation in particle size has an insignificant effect on the bed hydrodynamics. Therefore, S statistics is a reliable method to demar- cate different fluidization regimes and to characterize the influence of various operating conditions on the hydrodynamics of gas-liquid-solid fluidized beds. The method is applicable in large-scale industrial installations to detect dynamic changes within a bed, such as regime transitions or agglomeration.

Some hydrodynamic aspects of 3-phase inverse fluidized bed

Hydrodynamics of 3-phase inverse fluidized bed is studied experimentally using low density particles for different liquid and gas velocities. The hydrodynamic characteristics studied include pressure drop, minimum liquid and gas fluidization velocities and phase holdups. The minimum liquid fluidization velocity determined using the bed pressure gradient, decreases with increase in gas velocity. The axial profiles of phase holdups shows that the liquid holdup increases along the bed height, whereas the solid holdup decreases down the bed. However, the gas holdup is almost uniform in the bed.