Abstract
The present work aims at investigating the residence time distribution (RTD) of a multiple spouted bed reactor, which will be applied for the pyrolysis and gasification of residual biomass. The unit is composed of square-based spouted beds, placed in series and at descending heights, and communicating with each other through an opening in the lateral wall. The gas is fed evenly in parallel. The experimental analysis is based on tracer experiments in cold-flow units, assessing the influence of the number of units and the bed height. The tests proved the good mixing properties of the spouted beds, which create a stable fluidization regime and do not feature dead zones. Each spouted bed can generally be well assimilated to an ideal continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). The RTD of the device seems adequate for the application, and also seems to be well tuneable through the selection of the bed height and number of units. Given the good similarity with ideal reactor networks, these represent a valid tool to estimate the final behavior in terms of RTD.
Highlights
The spouted bed (SB) stands out as a reliable technology to process coarse and irregular solid particles
As there is no backflow between adjacent modules, these considerations are only presented for a single module operating in batch
The residence time distribution (RTD) of a multiple square-based spouted bed reactor was evaluated in this work
Summary
The spouted bed (SB) stands out as a reliable technology to process coarse and irregular solid particles. The fluid flow enters into the SB through a single central inlet creating three well differentiated zones: the central core of the reactor through which air flows (the spout), the surrounding packed annular region (the annulus) and the solids above the bed surface entrained by the spout and going down the annulus (the fountain). Alternative configurations, such as prismatic and slot-rectangular SBs [24,25], have been proposed to achieve similar fluid dynamics regimes.
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