PROPANE COMBUSTION IN A SPOUTED BED COMBUSTOR II: A MODELING STUDY IN THE BED REGION

ABSTRACT

Both homogeneous and heterogeneous chemistry must be considered in the description of combustion in the bed region of a spouted bed reactor. Our previous studies of propane combustion in the flame mode have shown that a spouted bed combustor can have low emissions. To understand specifically the combustion behavior in the bed region, a non-flame mode study of lean (φ< 0·4) propane combustion was performed, i.e., without a flame on the bed surface. Sand was used as bed material; the temperature range of 600°C to 900°C was investigated. Intermediate hydrocarbon species (CH₄, C₂H₆, C₂H₄, C₃H₆), CO and CO2 were measured in the bed region for a range of operating parameters (Jeng et al., 2001) In this paper, the data is modeled using a comprehensive propane combustion mechanism, which includes four radical termination steps on surfaces. This model successfully predicts the experimental data trends for different operating parameters such as equivalence ratio, particle size and bed height.

Keywords:

• spouted bed
• non-flame mode
• modeling emissions

Additional information

Notes on contributors

REN-SHYONG JENG

Diamond Technical & Trading Corp., 8F-S, No. 1, Wu Chyuan First Rd., Hsing Chuang, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C.

E. R. ALTWICKER

department of Chemical Engineering, Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668.

M.M. MORGAN

department of Chemical Engineering, Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668.

R.D. WILK

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308