A comparative analysis and scale-up of a novel slit-less gas-solid vortex reactor dryer with spiral chimney versus conical chimney outlet

Abstract

The present study's main objective is to develop a best-performing gas-solid vortex reactor (GSVR) dryer observing at the effect of spiral versus conical chimney outlet in capacity enhancement. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics study of the GSVR model with spiral and the conical chimney has been conducted using a commercial software ANSYS FLUENT 14.5, applying an Eulerian-Eulerian approach for gas-solid. The fluidization capacity of the SL-GSVR drying chamber with a spiral chimney is enhanced by increasing chamber-length. In contrast, in the case of SL-GSVR with a conical chimney outlet, the fluidization capacity is increased by improving the diameter of the reactor, considering various operating parameters, such as air velocity, pressure, bed-thickness, temperature, and heat transfer coefficient. For the same input parameters, the solid loading capacity of the SL-GSVR with a spiral drying chamber is found to be 27% higher than the SL-GSVR with a conical-chimney outlet. Also, the capacity enhancement seems simpler and easy by using a spiral-chimney outlet due to its symmetric nature of construction.