A new Approach for Scaling Up from a Small Cold to a Large Hot Bed for Biomass Conversion in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed Reactor

Abstract

Bubbling fluidized beds are simple and attractive means of achieving efficient conversion of biomass if particle segregation and the associated effects are minimized. To improve the knowledge of fluidized bed reactor design, this paper compares the behavior of a hot bed containing a certain amount of biomass with the behavior in a cold bed having the same biomass loads and particle properties. An approach for scaling up a cold bed to a large hot bed for the same volume fraction of biomass is introduced. The proposed scheme uses the bed expansion ratio as an output from the cold bed. This approach provides an accurate means of attaining dynamic similarity in bubbling behavior between two different beds without constraining the fluid and particle properties as well as the bed height.