A Research Study Submitted in Partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Environment, Resources and Development

Research Studies Project Report (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1990

In this study, two new/unconventional spouted bed reactor designs have been compared with the conventional design having a central gas (air) inlet jet. In one of these designs, air is introduced into a rectangular column through a rectangular slit while in the other design air is introduced into a cylindrical column through a circular slit. The column and the air inlet areas were the same in all the designs compared. Tests, carried out with dry sand samples, displayed hysteresis typical of all spouted beds with characteristic differences in shape depending upon particle size. Effects of particle size, bed weight and column geometry were evaluated. The maximum pressure drop was obtained in the design with circular slit and the minimum in the design with rectangular slit. Experiments were carried out to determine the contact efficiency, mass transfer flux, and combustion efficiency loss due to CO formation for the different reactor designs. The contact efficiency based on gas (air) exit and bed temperature, and combustion efficiency loss due to CO formation showed similar results and it was found that the highest contact efficiency and lowest co loss was achieved in the design with circular slit and lowest contact efficiency and highest CO loss was achieved in the design with rectangular slit. Mass transfer flux was found to decrease with increasing particle diameter and it was maximum in the design with central jet and minimum in the design with circular slit.