Structure optimization of granular bed filter for industrial flue gas filtration containing coagulative particles: An experimental and numerical study

A numerical model for the flow and filtration characteristics of industrial flue gas in granular bed filter (GBF) was established and the local filtration efficiency for different granule layers was investigated. Numerical validation results show that the GBF structure with large size granules at the inlet region and small size granules at the outlet region can effectively improve the filtration performance of GBF and the underlying mechanism was revealed. Then an experimental system was built to validate the suitability of the optimized GBF structure for the filtration of industrial flue gas with coagulative particles. The experimental results show that the optimized GBF structure is also suitable and its superiority is more significant with the increase of filtration time. The results show that the pressure drop and filtration efficiency of the experimental system increase with the increase of dust particles concentration. The existing of coagulative particles is conducive to the growth of smaller size dust particles, the pressure drop and filtration efficiency increase significantly. In addition, the pressure drop and filtration efficiency decrease with the increase of cooling rate. The results of this study are expected to be useful for the design and optimization of industrial flue gas purification and waste heat recovery.     

Filtration of dust in a circulating granular bed filter with conical louver plates (CGBF-CLPs)

A novel circulating granular bed filter with conical louver plates (CGBF-CLPs) was designed to remove dust particulates from the flue gas stream of a coal power plant. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the performance of the CGBF-CLPs. Dust collection efficiency and pressure drop data were analyzed to determine better operating conditions. The effect of solid mass flow rate, collector particle size and dust/collector particles separator types on the dust collection efficiency and pressure drop in the CGBF-CLPs were investigated in this study. The solid mass flow rate (B) varied from 15.59+/-0.44 to 20.36+/-0.68 g s(-1) and the initial average collector particle sizes were 1500 and 795 microm, respectively. Two types of separators, a cyclone and an inertial one, for separating the dust and collector particles were used in the CGBF-CLPs system. An Air Personal Sampler (SKC PCXR8) was used to determine the inlet and outlet dust concentrations. A differential pressure transmitter and data acquisition system were used to measure the pressure drop. Experimental results showed that the highest dust collection efficiency was 99.59% when the solid mass flow rate was 17.08+/-0.48 g s(-1) and the initial average collector particle size was 795 microm with the cyclone type separator. The results showed that the attrition fines of the original collector particles returning to the granular bed filter (GBF) reduced bed voidage. This phenomenon significantly increased the dust collection efficiency in the CGBF-CLPs. As a consequence, a bigger bed voidage creates a lower dust collection efficiency in the GBF.     

The effect of ash and filter media characteristics on particle filtration efficiency in fluidized bed

The phenomenon of filtering particles by a fluidized bed is complex and the parameters that affect the control efficiency of filtration have not yet been clarified. The major objective of the study focuses on the effect of characteristics of ash and filter media on filtration efficiency in a fluidized bed. The performance of the fluidized bed for removal of particles in flue gas at various fluidized operating conditions, and then the mechanisms of collecting particles were studied. The evaluated parameters included (1) various ashes (coal ash and incinerator ash); (2) bed material size; (3) operating gas velocity; and (4) bed temperature. The results indicate that the removal efficiency of coal ash increases initially with gas velocity, then decreases gradually as velocity exceeds some specific value. Furthermore, the removal of coal ash enhance with silica sand size decreasing. When the fluidized bed is operated at high temperature, diffusion is a more important mechanism than at room temperature especially for small particles. Although the inertial impaction is the main collection mechanism, the "bounce off" effect when the particles collide with the bed material could reduce the removal efficiency significantly. Because of layer inversion in fluidized bed, the removal efficiency of incinerator ash is decreased with increasing of gas velocity.     

Sulfation and attrition of calcium sorbent in a bubbling fluidized bed

A bubbling fluidized bed reactor was used as a desulfurization apparatus in this study. The height of the bed was 2.5 m, and the inner diameter was 9 cm. The bed materials were calcium sorbent and silica sand. The effects of the operating parameters of the flue gas desulfurization including relative humidity, temperature, superficial gas velocity, and the particle size of calcium sorbent on SO₂ removal efficiency and calcium sorbent conversion and attrition rate in the fluidized bed were investigated. It was found that the temperature effect in our system was negligible from 40 to 65°C. A higher relative humidity had a higher calcium conversion and a higher sulfur dioxide removal efficiency. Moreover, a smaller particle size of calcium sorbent had a lower calcium conversion in the cyclone but a higher sulfur dioxide removal efficiency. A lower superficial gas velocity resulted in a higher sulfur dioxide removal efficiency and a higher calcium conversion, thus, the total volume of the flue gas treated was maximum near the minimum fluidization velocity. Finally, an attrition rate model proposed in this study could predict the elutriation rate satisfactorily.     

Increase in processing flue gas flow rate while maintaining the fluidization state and filtration performance in a low-temperature continuous regeneration filter using a fluidized bed

To increase the processing gas flow rate in a fluidized bed filter, the effects of superficial velocity and fluidization state on PM filtration and combustion were examined by experiments using large bed particles (710 μm). The fluidization state at 710 μm was measured by image analysis and recurrence plot, and the superficial velocities as experimental conditions were determined to obtain almost the same fluidization state and filtration efficiency as those for small bed particles (420 μm) in previous studies. The BET-surface area of 710 μm is slightly larger than that of 420 μm, and the amount of potassium catalyst doped on large bed particles is comparable to that at 420 μm. The gas phase velocity is increased by increasing the processing gas flow rate, and the contact probability between PM and oxidizer increases. The PM combustion reaction is significantly promoted owing to the effects of the potassium catalyst and the increase in the gas phase velocity, and the minimum continuous regeneration temperature is 30 °C lower than that at 420 μm. As a result, fluidized bed filters using large bed particles can be operated in continuous regeneration mode at a bed temperature of 320 °C while maintaining a filtration efficiency of 100%.     

Semi-coke powder filtration experiments using a dual layer granular bed filter

The separation of semi-coke powders from tars and gases during coal pyrolysis is of crucial importance to the coal chemical industry. This work describes an experimental study on semi-coke powder filtration using an experimental dual layer granular bed filter with an inner diameter of 100?mm. With an initial filtration velocity of 0.2?m/s, the dual layer granular bed filter had a filtration efficiency of 99.943% and a pressure drop across the filter of only 1456?Pa. When the initial filtration velocity was increased to 0.25?m/s, the filtration efficiency was 99.937% and the pressure drop was 1834?Pa. Our results indicated that the dual layer granular bed filter we developed and tested showed significant promise as a high-temperature dust collector in low-temperature coal pyrolysis.     

Bed expansion and fluctuation in cylindrical gas solid fluidized beds with stirred promoters

A profound and fundamental understanding of bed dynamics such as bed expansion ratio and bed fluctuation ratio of irregular particles of binary mixtures has been made in a cylindrical fluidized column for gas solid systems, resulting in a predictive model for fluidized beds. In the present work attempt has been made to study the effect of various system parameters (viz. rotational speed of the promoter, initial static bed height, superficial velocity of the fluidizing medium, particle size and density) on the bed dynamics through experimentation. The correlations for the bed dynamics have been developed on the basis of dimensional analysis. It was observed that the calculated values of bed dynamics agree well with the experimental values in most of the cases.     

Study on gravity flow of granules in beds supported by louver–sublouver system

The moving granular bed filter has been developed for high-temperature gas cleanup. The existence of stagnant zone is an important problem to be solved since the dust particulates and fly ash coming with flue gas may plug the system and the filtration efficiency decreases remarkably.We proposed the idea of placing sublouvers into the convergent channel between louvers. The idea has been demonstrated the possibility to diminish the stagnant zones. This paper tries to study the influence of vertical shift of the sublouver position on the flow pattern. A quasi two-dimensional cross-flow moving granular bed, with systems of louvers and sublouvers, was used as the experimental facility. We used the silica sands as filter granules discharged from an upper hopper and circulated to the bed. An image processing system was used to record the granular flow for analyzing the flow patterns and velocity fields of filter granules. In this study, the optimum design of louver–sublouver moving bed has been demonstrated to almost completely eliminate the stagnant zones.Besides the quasi two-dimensional cross-flow moving bed tests, we also tested a three-dimensional moving bed using the optimum design of louver–sublouver. The results were also very satisfactory.     

喷动流化床喷雾造粒过程实验研究

为了研究喷雾造粒过程中影响颗粒粒径生长速率的因素,本文中在自建的喷动流化床上,以玻璃珠为晶种,工业级碳酸钾溶液为涂敷液,对流化气速、喷动气速、床层温度、溶液流量和浓度等因素对颗粒生长速率的影响进行了实验研究。实验结果表明,颗粒的生长速率随流化气速、喷动气速、床层温度的增大先增大后减小;随溶液浓度、流量的增大而增大。     

Pressure Drop and Gas Holdup Studies in a Spout-Fluid Bed

Spout-fluid beds are used for a variety of processes involving particulate solids. They are employed where the particle agglomeration, dead zones, and sticking of particles to the vessel are the common problems in conventional spouted beds. Applications involved are granulation, coating, drying, combustion, and gasification. In this study, experimental studies have been carried out in a cylindrical Perspex column (0.094 m internal diameter and 1.217 m height) using glass beads and air. The effects of initial bed loading, spout velocity, and background (fluidization) velocity on pressure drop and gas holdup have been investigated. It is found that the minimum spout-fluidizing velocity increases with increase in initial bed loading. The pressure drop and gas holdup increase with increasing bed loading. In spout-fluid bed condition, at a constant spout velocity, as the background gas velocity increases, the gas holdup increases, and it is found to be high for smaller bed loading and is low for larger bed loading at higher velocities. The fountain height increases as spouting velocity increases and it decreases with initial bed loading. The total velocity required to fluidize the particles in spout fluidization is lower in comparison to spouted beds and fluidized beds.     

Bed pressure drop of a bubbling fluidized-bed with overflow solid discharge

The pressure drop of a bubbling fluidized-bed that employed an in-bed inlet and an overflow outlet for continuous flow of solid particles was investigated with variation in the particle size and density, the solid flow rate and the gas velocity. The bed pressure drop decreased with increasing the gas velocity, but increased with the solid flow rate. The characteristics in lifting the solid particles vertically to the level of the overflow outlet by bubbles appeared different from the ones of particle entrainment and bed expansion. Regardless of size and density of particles, bed height in minimum fluidizing condition (pressure head by solid bed weight, H_mf,f) decreased with increasing the volume flow rate of bubble but increased with the mass flow rate of solid particles. The nominal vertical height from H_mf,f to the level of the overflow outlet that the particles should overcome in the course of discharging out of the fluidized-bed with the aid of bubbles increased as either the volume flow rate of bubble increased or the mass flow rate of solid particles decreased. The power consumed while bubbles lifted particles to be discharged appeared to be same at the fixed volume flow rate of bubble. A correlation was proposed successful even for predicting the bed pressure drop of the recycle chamber of the loop seal and the external solid circulation rate in the circulating fluidized-bed system.     

Hydrodynamic studies on fluidization of Red mud: CFD simulation

Hydrodynamic studies are carried out for the fluidization process using fine i.e. Geldart-A particles. Effects of superficial velocity on bed pressure drop and bed expansion is studied in the present work. Commercial CFD software package, Fluent 13.0 is used for simulations. Red mud obtained as waste material from Aluminum industry having average particle size of 77 microns is used as the bed material. Eulerian–Eulerian model coupled with kinetic theory of granular flow is used for simulating unsteady gas–solid fluidization process. Momentum exchange coefficients are calculated using the Gidaspow drag functions. Standard k–ε model has been used to describe the turbulent pattern. Bed pressure drop and bed expansion studies are simulated by CFD which are explained with the help of contour and vector plots. CFD simulation results are compared with the experimental findings. The comparison shows that CFD modeling is capable of predicting the hydrodynamic behaviors of gas–solid fluidized bed for fine particles with reasonable accuracy.     

流化床喷雾造粒颗粒强度的影响因素研究

颗粒强度作为流化床喷雾造粒产品的重要评价指标,对其影响因素的实验研究具有重要的现实意义。本文在一间歇锥形流化床喷雾造粒器中,以食用小麦淀粉为原料,以明胶的水溶液为粘结剂,实验研究了流化气速、床层温度、喷嘴雾化空气压力、粘结剂浓度对喷雾造粒颗粒强度的影响。结果表明,在本实验范围内,流化气速对颗粒强度的影响显著,床层温度、粘结剂浓度对颗粒强度也有较大的影响,而且均是非单调的。但喷嘴雾化空气压力与颗粒强度之间存在正向相关性。     

Removal of sulfur dioxide from a continuously operated binary fluidized bed reactor using inert solids and hydrated lime

Sulfur dioxide pollutant was treated in the laboratory with hydrated lime particles having a mean diameter of 9.1 microm in a continuously operating binary fluidized bed reactor also containing inert sand particles with sizes varying from 500 to 590 microm. The influence of temperature (500, 600, 700 and 800 degrees C) on the reaction medium, of the superficial velocity of the gas (0.8, 1.0 and 1.2 m/s), and of the Ca/S molar ratio (1, 2 and 3) on the SO2 removal efficiency were investigated for an inflow gas concentration of 1000 ppm and an initially static bed height of 10.0 cm. The pollutant removal efficiency proved to depend on the temperature and the velocity of the gaseous flow and was strongly influenced by the Ca/S molar ratio. The maximum efficiency of 97.7% was achieved at a temperature of 700 degrees C, a Ca/S ratio of 3 and a velocity of 0.8 m/s. The lime particles' mean residence time was determined by an indirect method, which consisted of integrating the gas concentration curves normalized with respect to time. Based on a calculation of the critical transition velocities, it was concluded that the reactor operated in a bubbling regime under each condition investigated here.     

A modeling and experimental study of flue gas desulfurization in a dense phase tower

We used a dense phase tower as the reactor in a novel semi-dry flue gas desulfurization process to achieve a high desulfurization efficiency of over 95% when the Ca/S molar ratio reaches 1.3. Pilot-scale experiments were conducted for choosing the parameters of the full-scale reactor. Results show that with an increase in the flue gas flow rate the rate of the pressure drop in the dense phase tower also increases, however, the rate of the temperature drop decreases in the non-load hot gas. We chose a water flow rate of 0.6 kg/min to minimize the approach to adiabatic saturation temperature difference and maximize the desulfurization efficiency. To study the flue gas characteristics under different processing parameters, we simulated the desulfurization process in the reactor. The simulated data matched very well with the experimental data. We also found that with an increase in the Ca/S molar ratio, the differences between the simulation and experimental data tend to decrease; conversely, an increase in the flue gas flow rate increases the difference; this may be associated with the surface reactions caused by collision, coalescence and fragmentation between the dispersed phases.     

Tracing Thermal Creep and Thermophoresis in Porous Structures at Low Ambient Pressure and Low Gravity

We carried out two types of drop tower experiments to quantify gas and particle motion induced by temperature gradients inside a porous structure in a low pressure environment. In one setup 400 μm sized particles were traced inside heated channels at pressures of a few Pascal. Their motion is consistent with pure thermophoresis. In the second setup tracer particles were used to track the thermal creep gas flow through a porous dust bed. Here, the flow was traced outside of the dust bed and without thermophoretic motion. The results are consistent with a simple capillary model of the dust bed.     

Investigation of hydrodynamics of gas-solid fluidized beds using cross recurrence quantification analysis

Hydrodynamics of gas-solid fluidized bed was investigated by analyzing its pressure fluctuations using cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Pressure fluctuations were measured in a lab scale fluidized bed of various particle sizes at different gas velocities. First, the CRQA was applied to a number of well-known dynamic systems and the results demonstrated that it is a powerful method to detect similarities between nonlinear signals. Then, it was shown that graphical structures within the cross recurrence plot of pressure fluctuations of a fluidized bed vary with both superficial gas velocity and particle size. It was found that determinism and cross recurrence rate of non-normalized data initially decrease and then increase with increasing the gas velocity. When the signal is initially normalized, determinism and entropy do not change with the superficial gas velocity while cross recurrence rate is sensible to changes in the superficial gas velocity. It was concluded that entropy can be used for detecting changes of particle size and if a proper reference state is chosen, entropy can be a powerful index for detecting changes in the size of particles in a fluidized bed.     

INTERACTION BETWEEN PRESSURE DROP OF GAS AND FLOW OF MEDIUM IN A MOVING GRANULAR BED FILTER

Gradually increasing pressure drop, which ultimately leads to a rapid increase, is a problem encountered in moving granular bed filters when gas velocity is elevated during dust collection from the top gas of a blast furnace. The relationship between dust collection and pressure drop was mathematically simulated, and then a half-size test model moving granular bed filter was used to examine the conditions under which the medium can flow. The increase in gas pressure drop proceeds as a circular chain of interrelated events. When gas velocity is increased and the gas pressure gradient exceeds a certain critical value, the medium flow stalls along the gas discharge side of the bed. Dust accumulates in the stalled medium, raising the pressure gradient even further. The growth in pressure drop is thus accelerated, finally resulting in a rapid and undesirable increase that prevents further operation.     

流化床喷雾造粒产品粒度分布的影响因素研究

在一下端直径188mm、上端直径396mm、高1000mm的倒锥形流化床喷雾造粒器内,以碳酸钙(CaCO3)粉末作为制药工业上的替代性原料,以明胶作为粘结剂,实验研究了床层温度、流化气速、雾化空气压等因素对造粒产品粒度分布的影响。结果表明,在本实验范围内,造粒产品颗粒的平均粒径随着流化气速、床层温度、雾化空气压的增大而减小,且粒度分布趋向于发散。     

快速床提升管内颗粒的扩散行为研究

在直径１００ｍ ｍ ×３ｍ 的实验台上,利用热粒子为示踪剂,研究快速床提升管内的颗粒的扩散行为。在不同的径向位置测得反映扩散行为的温度响应曲线,提出二维扩散模型来描述颗粒的轴、径向扩散。通过最小二乘拟和估计轴向扩散系统Ｄａ 和径向扩散系数Ｄｒ。实验发现,Ｄａ 随气体表面风速的增加而增加,Ｄｒ 则基本保持不变。静止床高的增加使Ｄａ、Ｄｒ 略有增加。