EUBCE 2026 - Wiebren DE JONG - Experimental & Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer in a Jet-Blown Conical Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Experimental & Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer in a Jet-Blown Conical Bubbling Fluidized Bed

Short Introductive summary

Fluidized beds for biomass gasification are one of the most efficient and widely used reactor types for converting solid biomass into syngas or biofuels production (via Fischer-Tropsch or methanol synthesis). This work focuses on the investigation of heat transfer of a conical, bubbling fluidized bed, both experimentally and numerically using porous alumina (widely used in industries as a catalyst support) as the bed material. A gas distribution system employing high velocity jets instead of a conventional distributor plate at the bottom of the bed is used. The pressure drop, wall temperature across the bed and bed expansion height are measured during the experiments, with the bed expansion height measured using RADAR technology. Further, three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the reactor bed for various operating conditions using ANSYS Fluent are validated with the experimental results. The idea is to develop a validated model that can provide deeper insights into such less-studied bed configurations, thus helping with improving their scaling and design.

R.M. Manila, TU Delft, THE NETHERLANDS
R. Ramesh, TU Delft, THE NETHERLANDS
W, de Jong, TU Delft, THE NETHERLANDS
J.T. Padding, TU Delft, THE NETHERLANDS