Gas mixing study in freely bubbling and turbulent gas–solid fluidized beds with a novel infrared technique coupled with digital image analysis

Abstract

A novel experimental technique using a high speed Infrared (IR) camera combined with an improved Digital Image Analysis (DIA) method for non-invasive concentration measurement with high spatial and temporal resolution has recently been developed by Dang et al. (2013). This paper reports the extension of the IR technique to freely bubbling and turbulent fluidization regimes to investigate and quantify lateral gas mixing characteristics in gas–solid fluidized beds. The mechanism of lateral gas mixing in the bubbling regime studied with the novel technique is in good agreement with values reported in the literature. The experimental results, interpreted with a plug flow model with superimposed dispersion for a homogeneous flow, show that the lateral gas mixing coefficient first increases with the increase of superficial gas velocities from the bubbling to the turbulent flow regime and then decreases for even higher velocities, which is consistent with earlier literature studies. The dependency of the lateral gas mixing coefficient on the Reynolds number using Amos׳ correlation (Amos and Mineo, 1993) has shown large discrepancies at low gas velocities (where the equation was extrapolated), while a good match was obtained at higher gas velocities. The experimental findings reported in this paper indicate that the novel IR/DIA technique can successfully be applied for mass transfer and gas mixing studies in gas–solids multiphase flows.