A new model for bubbling fluidized bed reactors

• New JSR model gives results close to experimental values for five fluidized bed processes.
• Mori and Wen (1975) equation is used for bubble size instead of Kobayashi et al. (1965) equation.
• Overall mass exchange coefficient used is 1/{(1/Kbc) + (1/Kce)} instead of ‘11/(db)’.
• Change in volumetric flow of gases due to temperature and reaction stoichiometry considered.
• Correlation of Delebarre (2004) is used for minimum fluidization velocity calculations.

Various mathematical models have been proposed in the past for estimating the conversions of reactant gases in fluidized bed reactors. A new mathematical model is being proposed in this paper that gives relatively better results compared to the prevailing models for bubbling fluidized bed reactors utilizing Geldart B particles. The new model is named as JSR (Jain, Sathiyamoorthy, Rao) model and it is a modified version of bubble assemblage model of Kato and Wen (1969). This paper discusses the development of JSR model and its verification by using data from chemical engineering literature on fluidization and also experimental data from hydrochlorination of silicon in a fluidized bed reactor. The new model is tested for five processes having operating temperatures from 130 °C to 450 °C, operating velocities from 0.019 m s−1 to 0.19 m s−1 and solid particle sizes from 65 to 325 mesh.