Numerical simulation of reactive transfers in spouted beds at high temperature: Application to coal gasification

Spouted beds are used in many physical and chemical processes that involve large particles (drying, combustion, film deposition, gasification, etc.). Understanding of bed hydrodynamics, coupled heat and mass transfer and chemical reaction phenomena is mandatory for designing, scaling up and optimizing spouted beds. In this work, a spouted bed reactor operating at high temperature has been modelled through one-dimensional model in which heat transfer has been carefully described at different levels of complexity. The process of coal gasification has been selected to demonstrate the models achievements and predictions have been compared to previous spouted bed reactor experimental results. Calculations have shown that a particular attention must be paid to describe heat transfer in spouted bed reactors operating at high temperature. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.