Mesoscale simulation study and experimental analysis of the fluidized iron oxide hydrogen reduction process

A mesoscale method is developed that can simulate the gas-solid reaction carried out during the fluidization, based on lattice gas cellular automata and Newton's second law. For the method, the coupling of gas-solid twophase flow and gas-solid interfacial reaction is realized in the same model framework. The method is used to investigate the effects of reaction temperature, H2 concentration, and gas flow rate on the fluidized hydrogen reduction of iron oxides, and the conversion curves obtained by the method are in agreement with the experimental results. The simulations reveal that the reduction of the iron oxide particle population is seriously affected by other solid particles around it and the local gas flow and temperature, reflecting the non-uniformity and anisotropy of the fluidized reduction; the solid particles appear to be agglomerated during fluidization due to the effects of vortex perturbations and uneven forces on the solid particles in the fluidization space.