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1 Introduction
Fluidized beds have been used as industrial reactors in the
processes involving catalytic and gas-solid reactions for more
than 50 years. In spite of the extensive research efforts on
fluidization during these years, many features of such reactors
which strongly influence their performance have only recently
begun to be understood. The uncertainties associated with
scale-up and modeling of fluidized beds is a significant
obstacle in the widespread use of fluidized beds in chemical
industries [1].
Two types of phenomena, i.e., physical and chemical, coexist
in the fluidized beds. The physical phenomenon corresponds
to the bed hydrodynamics, i.e., properties of bubble and
emulsion phases. The chemical phenomenon corresponds to
the chemical changes occurring in each phase. In order to
model a fluidized bed properly, one has to consider two
submodels describing these two phenomena: the hydrodynamic submodel which explains the physical phenomena, and
the reaction submodel which describes the chemical reactions
occurring in the bed.
Fluidized beds are hydrodynamically more complex than
other gas-solid contactors, mainly fixed and moving bed
reactors. Thus, it is important to understand and characterize
the parameters influencing the hydrodynamics of fluidized
beds [1,2]. Various hydrodynamic models are presented in the
[*]
DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200401908
123
Full Paper
reactor using CSTRs in series. El-Halwagi et al. [16] also
presented the three-phase model for fluidized bed reactor
simulation by PFRs and CSTRs for bubble, cloud and
emulsion phases. These models either have not yet been
implemented in the industrial process simulation programs or
have used simplified hydrodynamic assumptions. The hydrodynamics of such reactors become very important when highly
exothermic reactions take place in the reactor.
Various process simulation programs, such as ASPEN
PLUS, PRO/II, HYSYS, CHEMCAD, DESIGN II and
INDISS, are available and are employed for process simulation purposes by industrial entities. All these programs have
been developed based on the sequential modular approach,
i.e., they consist of different standard modules which could be
combined together to represent the whole process. These
process simulators are generally not strong in reactor modules
and only contain standard, ideal reactors, such as PFR and
CSTR. In spite of their vast use in the chemical industries, a
fluidized bed reactor module is not offered in these programs.
In this work, a fluidized bed reactor model is presented by
combining the standard reactor modules available in the
process simulation programs. These standard modules have to
be combined in a logical way to represent the reality in the
fluidized bed reactors. Furthermore, the model has to be easily
applicable in all process simulation programs.
CAbi
CAei
CAe(i-1)
CAb(i-1)
2 Model Implementation
A fluidized bed reactor is a nonideal reactor, i.e., it cannot
be considered as either a PFR or a CSTR. It has been tried by
some researchers to model such nonideality by the tanks-inseries model (e.g., [11,15,16]). However, these models ignore
the main aspect of gas-solid fluidization, i.e., coexistence of
bubble and emulsion phases in the reactor. The movement of
gas through the bubbles in the fluidized bed could be
considered as plug flow while it could be considered as
completely mixed in the emulsion phase. Therefore, while the
whole reactor could be axially divided into several sections,
each section itself may be considered to be consisting of two
ideal reactors: a PFR to represent the gas flow through the
bubbles and a CSTR to represent the gas flow through the
emulsion. Such an approach is closer to the reality than the
previous models which consider each section as a CSTR. A
schematic diagram of the ith stage of the proposed model is
illustrated in Fig. 1. It is assumed that first the reaction takes
place in each reactor of each stage and then the mass transfer
occurs at the exit of the reactors between the effluents.
Additional assumptions considered in developing the
model are:
The bubbles reach their equilibrium size quickly above the
distributor. Therefore, the bubble diameter is assumed to be
constant along the bed height.
The hydrodynamics of both phases could be characterized
by the dynamic two-phase (DTP) model [9]. It has been
shown that this model could estimate the hydrodynamic
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bulk flow
in
bulk flow
out
dissapearance by
chemical reaction
mass
0
transfer
(1)
1)
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Bubble phase:
CAbi
1 Ub Ab
Ab eb
Ri
zi 1
rAi dz
CAei Vbi
Kbe CAbi
CAbi Ub Ab 0
(2)
Emulsion phase:
rAi VCSTRi Kbe CAbi
d
CAei Vei
CAei Ue Ae 0
1 d
CAei
1 Ue Ae
(3)
Bubble diameter [25]
Db Dbm
Dbm
Dbo 0:8713
AUo Umf
Ub Uo
Dr
!0:4
ND
Dbm 1:6377 AUo
Bubble velocity [26]
0:15hmf
Dbo exp
Umf
0:4
Ue ubr
p
ubr 0:711 gDb
Bubble to emulsion mass transfer coefficient [1]
1
1
1
DAB ubr ee
6:77
D3b
Kbc
Ue
4:5
Db
d1
Af 1
eb Avoid
ee Avoid
b1
e1
Avoid
Avoid
Db5=4
Af 2 exp
b2
e2
Uo Umf
Af 3
exp
exp
Uo Umf
Avoid
b3
Uo Umf
Avoid
e3
Vt
n
Vi
Vbi Vi d
Vei Vi 1
VPFRi Vbi eb
VCSTRi Vei ee
http://www.cet-journal.de
D0:5
g0:25
AB
5:85
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divisions which would best fit the experimental data was
chosen to be the total number of stages in that case. It was
found that in the case of slower reactions and higher gas
velocities a larger number of stages are required to simulate
the fluidized bed reactor accurately as compared to the faster
reactions and lower gas velocities for which the reactor could
be simulated even with a single stage. In fact, a higher gas
velocity enhances the solids mixing and also makes the gas
pass faster through the bed, thus, the whole bed could be
simulated as a smaller number of stages shown in Fig. 1.
Similarly, a smaller number of stages would be needed if a
faster reaction is to be carried out in the reactor. Based on this
discussion, it is proposed that the number of stages is a
function of the following dimensionless number:
J Ha
U0
Umf
(5)
(4)
J < 11.1
0.63 < J
Unit
Fryer and
Potter [21]
Shen and
Johnstone [22]
Massimilla and
Johnstone [23]
Heidel et al.
[24]
Dr
0.1
0.229
0.114
0.114
0.075
0.54
0.58
0.26
dp
lm
60
117
rs
kg/m
1580
2650
Umf
m/s
0.0026
0.017
0.005
0.014
0.011
UCa
m/s
0.6502
1.4182
0.52
1.01
0.75
emf
0.475
0.48
0.5
0.5
0.5
C
25
25
427
250
150
kPa
101.3
101.3
101.3
101.3
101.3
s1
2.41, 8.95
0.050.085
0.0030.008
0.0446
0.16, 0.27
U0
m/s
Umf1.2
0.0240.058
Umf0.06
Umf0.06
0.0050.075
Geldart
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100
80
X A (%)
60
40
E: Uo=0.024 (m/s)
E: Uo=0.046 (m/s)
E: Uo=0.081 (m/s)
C: Uo=0.035 (m.s)
C: Uo=0.058 (m/s)
20
100
90
0
0
80
X A (%)
E: Uo=0.035 (m.s)
E: Uo=0.058 (m/s)
C: Uo=0.024 (m/s)
C: Uo=0.046 (m/s)
C: Uo=0.081 (m/s)
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
K (1/s)
Figure 4. Fluidized bed reactor conversion as a function of reaction rate constant
at different superficial gas velocities (E: experimental [21], C: calculated).
70
60
100
E: K=2.41(1/s)
E: K=8.95 (1/s)
C: K=2.41 (1/s)
C: K=8.95 (1/s)
40
80
30
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
U 0 (m/s)
Figure 2. Fluidized bed reactor conversion as a function of superficial gas
velocity at different reaction rate constants (E: experimental [20], C:
calculated).
100
60
40
K=0.04 (1/s)
K=0.14 (1/s)
K=0.32 (1/s)
20
90
50
K=0.85 (1/s)
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
80
70
60
K=2.41 (1/s)
50
K=8.95 (1/s)
40
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
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Full Paper
100
80
60
40
80
60
40
K=0.16 (1/s)
K=0.28 (1/s)
K=0.003 (1/s)
20
K=0.005 (1/s)
20
k=0.008 (1/s)
20
40
60
80
100
20
40
60
80
K=0.0446 (1/s)
20
10
0
0
10
20
30
4 Conclusions
A new hydrodynamic model is developed for fluidized bed
reactors based on the sequential modular approach. The
proposed model is a combination of the tanks-in-series model
for nonideal reactors and the two-phase concept of fluidization. According to this model, the fluidized bed is divided into
128
Acknowledgement
The financial support of the University of Tehran (grant no.
6133739) is gratefully acknowledged.
Received: July 24, 2003 [CET 1908]
Symbols used
ai
A
Af(1)
Af(2)
Af(3)
AVoid-b(1)
AVoid-b(2)
AVoid-b(3)
[m1]
[m2]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
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Full Paper
AVoid-e(1)
AVoid-e(2)
AVoid-e(3)
CA
DAB
Db
Db0
Dbm
dp
Dr
G
H
Ha
hmf
J
K
Kbc
Kbe
Kce
ND
N
P
rA
T
Ub
ubr
Uc
Ue
Umf
U0
Vb
VCSTR
Ve
VPFR
[]
[]
[]
[kmol/m3]
[m2/s]
[m]
[m]
[m]
[m]
[m]
[m/s2]
[m]
[]
[m]
Greek symbols
rs
eb
ee
d
[kg/m3]
[]
[]
[]
solid density
bubble phase voidage
emulsion phase voidage
bubble phase fraction
Subscripts
B
E
I
bubble phase
emulsion phase
section no.
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