Hydrodynamic study of a toroidal fluidized bed reactor

Hydrodynamic behavior of a newly developed toroidal fluidized bed reactor is studied in this work. The reactor has a gas distributor consisting of angled blades in an annular ring at the reactor bottom. The driving force for particles to move over the distributing blades comes from the velocity head of gas jets accelerated upon entering the blade spacing. Relevant hydrodynamic behaviors are measured with various inert materials in a pilot scale 400-mm toroidal fluidized bed reactor. The observed hydrodynamic behavior is found to be essentially predictable at ambient temperature by conventional hydrodynamic models. Fine particle tracking on the reactor wall is clearly observed through oxidation of zinc dross at a bed temperature of around 1120°C, and is simulated on the basis of a simplified mathematical model. Hydrodynamic issues, such as particle flying trajectory and retention time in the reactor, are discussed based on the developed model.