Development of Laboratory Scale Conical Spouted Bed Reactors

• Main Author: Gegenheimer, James Blake
• Other Authors: Schoegl, Ingmar
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2017
• Subjects: Mechanical Engineering & Industrial Engineering
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04062017-124617/

Conical spouted beds (CSBs) are a form of a fluidized bed that is characteristic of its spouting behaviors. The conical spouted bed has a small inlet that diverges through a conical section towards a larger fixed-diameter column which is filled with static spouting media. By injecting a fluid at a sufficient velocity, a small spout will form in which the spouting media will become entrained by the fluid particles and carried to the top of the system where it will circulate back into the system. It has been shown that CSB reactors have the potential for increasing the heat circulation in fuel reforming techniques used for the production of hydrogen rich syngas. This thesis investigates the design and behavior of a cold-flow laboratory scaled conical spouted bed (CSB) including the effects of system parameters such as the stagnated bed height, inlet diameter, cone angle, particle selection and fluid selection. These parameters were varied through a series of test in which the pressure was measured with respect to the inlet gas velocity to determine the minimum spouting point. Previous correlations are compared to measured data and it was found that these correlations were insufficient at predicting the measured points accurately. This is due to separate parameters being used and scaled differently than the current study. Therefore, a new correlation is presented with an average error of 8.2% - significantly less than that of other correlations. The behaviors found were expected based on the physical hydrodynamic behavior as well as other behaviors being detailed including the effects of internal spouting and unstable spouting. With a fundamental hydrodynamic study complete, the addition of chemical reactions may be introduced to further understand the effects of CSB reactors for more efficient production of eco-friendly fuel sources.