Flow Regime Study of a Light Material in an Industrial Scale Cold Flow Circulating Fluidized Bed

A series of experiments was conducted in the $0.3meter$ diameter circulating fluidized bed test facility at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the U. S. Department of Energy. The particle used in this study was a coarse, light material, cork, which has a particle density of $189kg∕m3$ and a mean diameter of $812μm$⁠. Fluidizing this material in ambient air approximates the same gas-solids density ratio as coal and coal char in a pressurized gasifier. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study is to provide a better understanding on the fundamentals of flow regimes and their transitions. The second purpose of this study is to generate reliable data to validate the mathematical models, which are currently under development at NETL. Utilization of such coarse, light material can greatly facilitate the computation of these mathematical models. Furthermore, the ratio of density of cork to air under ambient conditions is similar to the density ratio of coal to gas at the gasification and pressurized fluidized bed combustion environment. This paper presents and discusses the data, which covered operating flow regime from dilute phase, fast fluidization, and to dense phase transport by varying the solid flux, $Gs$ at a constant gas velocity, $Ug$⁠. Data are presented by mapping the flow regime for coarse cork particles in a $ΔP∕ΔL‐Gs‐Ug$ plot. The coarse cork particles exhibited different behavior than the published literature measurements on heavier materials such as alumina, sand, FCC, silica gel, etc. A stable operation can be obtained at a fixed riser gas velocity higher than the transport velocity, e.g., at $Ug=3.2m∕s$⁠, even though the riser is operated within the fast fluidization flow regime. Depending upon the solids influx, the riser can also be operated at dilute phase or dense phase flow regimes. Experimental data were compared to empirical correlations in published literature for flow regime boundaries as well as solids fractions in the upper dilute and the lower dense regions for fast fluidization flow regime. Comparisons of measured data with these empirical correlations show rather poor agreements. These discrepancies, however, are not surprising since the correlations for these transitions were derived from experimental data of comparative heavier materials such as sands, FCC, iron ore, alumina, etc.