OPTIMAL-DESIGN OF HEAT GENERATOR WITHOUT NOX EMISSION

New combustion technologies aiming at protecting the environment require appropriate design methods for catalytic combustors. This paper presents an algorithm for the design of an atmospheric fluidized bed combustor based on the catalytic combustion of natural gas. It gives optimal design parameters namely the bed diameter, the operation temperature, the particle size and the superficial gas velocity for a given power and a given conversion. Using kinetics data from the literature and hydrodynamic parameters calculated from available equations, this algorithm predicts, for a required power level of 50 kW, a bed diameter of about 0.25 m at a temperature of 550-degrees-C, and, for a power of 500 kW, a bed diameter of about 0.5 m at a temperature of 500-degrees-C.