Analysis of conical spouted bed fluid dynamics using carton mixtures

• Spouting is only achieved for polyethylene and carton CSBs with up to 50% cartons.
• Increasing cartons in mixtures lead to the decrease of sand flowability in the bed.
• CFD modeling predicts air and solid flow behavior of CSB mixtures used.
• In general, for polyethylene and sand mixtures CFD underestimates Vmj and ΔPmj.
• For conditions tested, Syamlal–O’Brien drag model is more suitable than Gidaspow.

The pyrolysis has risen as an important alternative technology for generating value from waste. Among the modern solid wastes, the post-consumer carton packaging highlights due to the high value-added of the primary products obtained from pyrolysis. In an attempt to use conical spouted beds (CSBs) as a pyrolysis reactor for processing cartons, this present research aims at analyzing experimentally the air–carton mixtures flow dynamics in CSBs and stating comparisons with characteristic fluid dynamics obtained by using CFD technique. The flow behavior of air–carton disk is experimentally investigated by analyzing data of bed pressure drop, air velocity and fountain height. For the carton disk and polyethylene mixtures up to 50% cartons (in mass), and carton disks and sand mixtures comprising 5 and 10% cartons (in mass), the analysis of the experimental data shows that the stable spouted regimes are achieved. Furthermore, the simulated results demonstrate that the Eulerian approach using the Syamlal drag model is able to predict qualitatively the flow behavior in conical spouted beds comprising non-spherical particle mixtures.