Hydrodynamic study of a toroidal fluidized bed reactor

Hydrodynamic behavior of a newly developed toroidal fluidized bed reactor i s studied in this work. The reactor has a gas distributor consisting of ang led blades in an annular ring at the reactor bottom. The driving force for particles to move over the distributing blades comes from the velocity head of gas jets accelerated upon entering the blade spacing. Relevant hydrodyn amic behaviors are measured with various inert materials in a pilot scale 4 00-mm toroidal fluidized bed reactor. The observed hydrodynamic behavior is found to be essentially predictable at ambient temperature by conventional hydrodynamic models. Fine particle tracking on the reactor wall is clearly observed through oxidation of zinc dress at a bed temperature of around 11 20 degrees C, and is simulated on the basis of a simplified mathematical mo del. Hydrodynamic issues, such as particle Eying trajectory and retention t ime in the reactor, are discussed based on the developed model. (C) 2000 El sevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.