Assessment of Scale-up Dimensionless Groups Methodology of Gas-Solid Fluidized Beds Using Advanced Non-Invasive Measurement Techniques (CT and RPT)

The most common scale-up methodology for gas-solid fluidized bed reactors that has been reported in the literature is based on matching the dimensionless groups. This scale-up methodology in the literature has been validated by only measuring global hydrodynamic parameters ( overall holdups and pressure drop, etc.) without details. Therefore, in this work, we have applied advanced non-invasive measurement techniques, gammaray computed tomography (CT) and radioactive particle tracking (RPT) techniques, for the first time to evaluate such scale-up methodology by measuring local hydrodynamic parameters. The results obtained demonstrate that the reported set of the dimensionless groups are not adequate in capturing all the interplay phenomena for achieving similarity in the local hydrodynamic parameters when the proposed set of dimensionless groups has been matched using two sizes of fluidized beds of 0.14 m and 0.44 m and sets of operating conditions. This finding confirms that the local measurements of the hydrodynamic parameters are essential for detailed assessment of scale-up methodologies.