Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology

Department of Chemical Engineering
Fluidized Bed Reactors
Fluidized bed reactors (FBR) are catalytic reactors in which the catalyst is fluidized
within the reactor. Fluidized bed reactors are heterogeneous catalytic reactors in which
the mass of catalyst is fluidized. This allows for extensive mixing in all directions. A
result of the mixing is excellent temperature stability and increased mass-transfer and
reaction rates. Fluidized bed reactors are capable of handling large amounts of feed and
catalyst.
Fluidized beds are reactors in which small particles (with average size below 0.1 mm)
are fluidized by the reactant gases or liquids. When the linear velocity is above the
minimum required for fluidization, a dense fluidized bed is obtained. As the superficial
velocity increases, the bed expands and becomes increasingly dilute. At a high enough
linear velocity, the smallest particles entrain from the bed and have to be separated from
the exhaust gases and recycled.
Fluidized beds are used widely in chemical processing industries for separations, rapid
mass and heat transfer operations, and catalyic reactions. A typical fluidized bed is a
cylindrical column that contains particles and through which fluid, either gaseous or
liquid, flows. In the case of fluidized bed reactors, the particles would contain a catalyst,
and for separations, the particles might be an absorbent or adsorbent. The velocity of
the fluid is sufficiently high to suspend, or fluidize, the particles within the column,
providing a large surface area for the fluid to contact, which is the chief advantage of
fluidized beds.
Fluidized beds contain a bottom support plate over which the solids reside. The reactant
gases typically are fed through a sparging system placed very near the bottom of the
plate. These reactors employ a wide range of particle sizes and densities

Figure 1. FBR used for treating aniline-and

nitrobenzene-contaminated wastewater

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering
Fluidized Bed Reactors (FBR) Design
A typical fluidized bed reactors contains a plenum, a gas distributor (such as a grid
plate or sparger), the particle bed region, a freeboard region above the particle bed,
heating and cooling coils if needed, and cyclones.

Figure 2. A typical fluidized bed reactor

Fluidized beds are also used as dryers and heat treaters. Their design is somewhat
different from that of a typical reactor. The bed heights in fluidized-bed dryers and heat
treaters tend to range from 0.3 m to 0.5 m, whereas fluidized-bed reactors usually have
bed heights on the order of 110 m.
Several need to be considered in the design of a fluidized bed to ensure reliable
operation. The grid plate and sparger are subject to pressure drop and spacing limits.
Entrainment rates need to be measured or estimated. Also, cyclones need to be designed
for high collection efficiency and low pressure drop.
Distributors
The primary purpose of a grid plate or a sparger is to provide good gas distribution. In
addition to pressure drop and spacing considerations, their design also needs to take
into account particle attrition, erosion of the vessel and internal components, and
mechanical constraints (i.e, thermal expansion, bed slumping during emergency
shutdowns, etc.
Many distributor designs are available. Grid plates can range from simple perforated
plates to bubble cap plates. Bubble cap grid plates are designed to minimize particle
weeping into the plenum.

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering
Spargers can be designed with jets that point downward, upward, or laterally. Spargers
have the advantage of being easily engineered to accommodate thermal expansion.
Common Sparger designs have ring, orthogonal, or treed layouts.

Figure 3. Types of Grids and Spargers

Fluidized bed reactors are generally very large. They must be designed so that the fluid
flowrate is sufficient to suspend the catalyst particles. The particles typically range in
size from 10 - 300 microns.
When designing a fluidized bed reactor, the catalyst life must also be taken into account.
Most fluidized bed reactors, such as the one shown here have a separate compartment
to regenerate the catalyst.
Good distributor design and the presence of a substantial fraction of fines (mainly for
processes employing group A powders) are essential for good fluidization, to eliminate
maldistribution, and for good performance. Internals for heat transfer (e.g., cooling
tubes) and other baffling for improved performance provide design challenges as their
effect is not yet well understood (in spite of the voluminous literature).
Factors Affecting Fluidized Bed Reactors Design
The particle size distribution and the linear velocity are important in reactor design. The
minimum fluidization velocity is the velocity at the onset of fluidization while the terminal
velocity is the velocity above which a particle can become entrained from the bed. The
nature of the particles and the linear velocity determine bed properties such as gas
holdup, equilibrium bubble size (for bubbling systems), entrainment rate of particles from
the bed, and the flow regime transition velocities. The height beyond which the

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering
concentration of entrained particles does not vary significantly is called the transport
disengagement height. Knowledge of this height is required for the design and location
of cyclones for solids containment. In addition to the velocity and the nature of the
particles, the layout of the equipment can determine the particle attrition rate.
Fluidized Bed Reactors (FBR) Operation

Figure 4. Flow distribution in a fluidized bed

Before the reactor is started the catalyst pellets lie on a grate at the bottom of the reactor.
Reactants are pumped into the reactor through a distributor continuously, causing the
bed to become fluidized. The bed's behavior after initial fluidization depends on the state
of the reactant. If it is a liquid the bed expands uniformly with increased upward flow of
the reactant. This is called homogenous fluidization. If the reactant is a gas the bed will
be non-uniform because the gas forms bubbles in the bed, resulting in aggregative
fluidization. Sometimes these bubbles in coarse materials can grow larger than twothirds of the bed's diameter, which can cause slugging. Slugging can result in variable
pressures, vibrations in the bed, and heat transfer reductions. Increasing the velocity of
the gas leads to a turbulent regime, as shown below. In the fast fluidization regime the
bed surface starts to disappear. Increasing the gas velocity further results in pneumatic
transport, in which the bed is completely removed and the particles are uniformly
spaced in the fluid. During this process the reactants react due to the presence of the
catalyst pellets, forming products that are removed continuously.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

Even temperature distribution eliminates hot spots.

Catalyst is easily replaced or regenerated.
Allows for continuous, automatically controlled operations.
More efficient contacting of gas and solid than in other catalytic reactors.

Disadvantages
Expensive to construct and maintain.
Erosion of reactor walls may occur.
Regeneration equipment for catalyst is expensive.
Catalyst may be deactivated.
Can't be used with catalyst solids that won't flow freely.
Large pressure drop.
Attrition, break-up of catalyst pellets due to impact against reactor walls, can
occur.
Applications
Fluidized beds are used as a technical process which has ability to promote high levels
of contact of gases and solids. In fluidized bed a characteristics set of basic properties
can utilized indispensable to modern process and chemical engineering. These
properties include:
Extremely high surface area contact between fluid and solid unit bed volume.
High relative velocities between the fluid and the dispersed solid phase.
High level of inter mixing of the particulate phase, frequent particle-particle
particle-wall collision.
Taking an example of processing industry: fluidized beds are used to accelerate
fringing in some IQF (individually quick frozen).
These fluidized bed tunnels are typically used on small products like peas, sliced
vegetables.
The fluid used in the fluidized may also contain a fluid of catalytic type; that's
why it is also used to catalyses the chemical reaction and improve the rate
reaction.
Fluidized beds are also used for efficient bulk drying of material,
Fluidized bed technology in dryers increase the efficiency by allowing for the
entire surface of subject of the drying to the suspended therefore expose to air.
This process can also be combined with heating and cooling as the application if
necessary.
Fluidized bed dryers used in drying of various materials such as powder, tablets,
granules, coals, fertilizers, and plastic material.
This process is being used in a granulation of the pharmaceutical powders
Fluidized bed coater are used widely for coating of powders, granules, tablets,
pallets, beds held in suspension of column of air.
Fluidized bed coating is used for test masking, enteric release and barrier films
tablets and powders
Types of Fluidized Bed Reactors

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

Bed types can be coarsely classified by their flow behavior, including:

Stationary or bubbling fluidized bed is the classical approach where the gas at low
velocities is used and fluidization of the solids is relatively stationary, with some fine
particles being entrained.

Circulating fluidized beds (CFB), where gases are at a higher velocity sufficient to
suspend the particle bed, due to a larger kinetic energy of the fluid. As such the
surface of the bed is less smooth and larger particles can be entrained from the bed
than for stationary beds. Entrained particles are recirculated via an external loop
back into the reactor bed. Depending on the process, the particles may be classified
by a cyclone separator and separated from or returned to the bed, based upon
particle cut size.

At higher gas velocities the slip velocity increases and the fluidized bed changes
its behavior. The defined boiling surface disappears with the expansion of the
fluidized solids. The fluidization gas has enough energy to entrain solids particles.
The entrained particles are separated from the gas by a cyclone and recirculated via
an external loop back into the fluidized bed reactor. In addition an internal
recirculation of the solids in the fluidized bed reactor takes place. Both internal and
external circulation results in a homogenous temperature distribution in the CFB

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering
system. CFB has been successfully applied for coal combustion, roasting of gold
ores, direct reduction of iron ore fines and other uses.
Transport or flash reactor (FR). At velocities higher than CFB, particles approach
the velocity of the gas. Slip velocity between gas and solid is significantly reduced at
the cost of less homogeneous heat distribution.

With further increase of the gas velocity, the solids are approaching the velocity of the
gas. In the flash (transport) reactor the slip velocity between gas and solids is
considerably decreased compared to the circulating fluidized bed. At the same time the
advantages of homogeneous temperature distribution and ideal heat and mass transfer
are decreased. This type of reactor is used in selected applications where low gas and
solid retention times are sufficient.
As an extension of the fluidized bed family of separation processes, the flash reactor
(FR) (or transport reactor) employs turbulent fluid introduced at high velocities to
encourage chemical reactions with feeds and subsequently achieve separation through
the chemical conversion of desired substances to different phases and streams. A flash
reactor consists of a main reaction chamber and an outlet for separated products to
enter downstream processes.
FR vessels facilitate a low gas and solid retention (and hence reactant contact time) for
industrial applications which give rise to a high throughput, pure product and less than
ideal thermal distribution when compared to other fluidized bed reactors. Due to these
properties as well as its relative simplicity FRs have the potential for use for pretreatment and post-treatment processes where these strengths of the FR are prioritized
the most.
Various designs of a FR (e.g. pipeline FR, centrifugal FR, vessel FR) exist and are
currently used in pilot industrial plants for further development. These designs allow
for a wide range of current and future applications, including water treatment
sterilization, recovery and recycling of steel mill dust, pre-treatment and roasting of
metals, chemical looping combustion as well as hydrogen production from biomass.

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

College of Engineering and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering
The vessel flash reactor is a design commonly used and is shown in the figure to the
right. Gas is introduced from the bottom at an elevated temperature and high velocity,
with a slight drop in velocity experienced at the central part of the vessel. Chamber A is
designed to be "egg shaped", with a relatively narrow bottom cross sectional area and a
wide upper cross sectional area. This configuration is designed to increase the fluid's
velocity at the chamber's bottom, allowing for heavy feed particles to be in a continuous
circulation that promotes a reaction site for separation processes.
Annular fluidized bed (AFB). A large nozzle at the center of a bubble bed introduces
gas as high velocity achieving the rapid mixing zone above the surrounding bed
comparable to that found in the external loop of a CFB.

The annular fluidized bed is a new type of fluidized bed that has a specific type of motion
where it moves in radial. There is relatively little axial mixing of gases and there is radial
motion. The axial flow profile of the annular fluidized bed can be determined by pressure
drops along the plant height, which can be divided into three major parts: the annulus,
the bottom and the top part of the mixing chamber. Based on the height of the bed,
while the annulus has a porosity close to the solids minimal fluidization porosity, each
region of bed is characterized by different pressure gradients. The closer to the central
nozzle, the lower the pressure gradient and the higher the pressure drop in the mixing
chamber.
Annular fluidized bed a type of fluidized bed which improves the introduction and
mixing of hot dust laden process gases. These gases enter the reactor through a large
central nozzle, with additional fluidization gas introduced through an annular nozzle
ring. As a result, a very intense mixing zone is achieved within the reactor above the
central nozzle, comparable to the conditions achieved by an external loop of a CFB.
Further advantages are excellent process control and improved mass transfer
conditions. The AFB can be combined with any other fluidized bed type.