Processing fluidized-bed

Cobalt aHoys may find appHcation ia a fluidized-bed process for the direct combustion of coal (qv). CoCrAlY-coated Haynes 188 has proven to be one of the most resistant materials to a fireside corrosion process encountered ia tubes coimected the fluidized-bed combustor to a steam turbiae. 

The iron carbide process is alow temperature, gas-based, fluidized-bed process. Sized iron oxide fines (0.1—1.0 mm) are preheated in cyclones or a rotary kiln to 500°C and reduced to iron carbide in a single-stage, fluidized-bed reactor system at about 590°C in a process gas consisting primarily of methane, hydrogen, and some carbon monoxide. Reduction time is up to 18 hours owing to the low reduction temperature and slow rate of carburization. The product has the consistency of sand, is very britde, and contains approximately 6% carbon, mostly in the form of Ee C. 

A schematic flow diagram for the ALMA fluidized-bed process is shown in Figure 2 (121). Compressed air and butane are typically introduced... 

Fig. 2. Schematic flow diagram of the ALMA fluidized-bed process (121). BFW BFW = boiler feed water.

The Snamprogetti fluidized-bed process uses a chromium catalyst in equipment that is similar to a refinery catalytic cracker (1960s cat cracker technology). The dehydrogenation reaction takes place in one vessel with active catalyst deactivated catalyst flows to a second vessel, which is used for regeneration. This process has been commercialized in Russia for over 25 years in the production of butenes, isobutylene, and isopentenes. 

Fig. 3. Schematic of a fluidized-bed process for mammalian cell culture where D(02) = dissolved oxygen.

At a much earlier stage in the research and development cycle, fluidized-bed processes use porous sorbents containing copper oxide (82), cerium oxide (83), and other metal oxides (84). 

Activated alumina and phosphoric acid on a suitable support have become the choices for an iadustrial process. Ziac oxide with alumina has also been claimed to be a good catalyst. The actual mechanism of dehydration is not known. In iadustrial production, the ethylene yield is 94 to 99% of the theoretical value depending on the processiag scheme. Traces of aldehyde, acids, higher hydrocarbons, and carbon oxides, as well as water, have to be removed. Fixed-bed processes developed at the beginning of this century have been commercialized in many countries, and small-scale industries are still in operation in Brazil and India. New fluid-bed processes have been developed to reduce the plant investment and operating costs (102,103). Commercially available processes include the Lummus processes (fixed and fluidized-bed processes), Halcon/Scientific Design process, NIKK/JGC process, and the Petrobras process. In all these processes, typical ethylene yield is between 94 and 99%. 

TABLE 25-46 Full-Scale Commercial Applications of Fluidized Bed Process... 

Fluidized-bed catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) are the most common catalytic cracking units. In the fluidized-bed process, oil and oil vapor preheated to 500 to SOOT is contacted with hot catalyst at about 1,300°F either in the reactor itself or in the feed line (called the riser) to the reactor. The catalyst is in a fine, granular form which, when mixed with the vapor, has many of the properties of a fluid. The fluidized catalyst and the reacted hydrocarbon vapor separate mechanically in the reactor and any oil remaining on the catalyst is removed by steam stripping. 

Fluidized-bed process incinerators have been used mostly in the petroleum and paper industries, and for processing nuclear wastes, spent cook liquor, wood chips, and sewage sludge disposal. Wastes in any physical state can be applied to a fluidized-bed process incinerator. Au.xiliary equipment includes a fuel burner system, an air supply system, and feed systems for liquid and solid wastes. The two basic bed design modes, bubbling bed and circulating bed, are distinguished by the e.xtent to which solids are entrained from the bed into the gas stream. 

Heterogeneous catalysts can be divided into two types those for use in fixed-bed processing wherein the catalyst is stationary and the reactants pass upward (flooded-bed) or downward (trickle-bed) over it, and those for use it slurry or fluidized-bed processing. Fixed-bed catalysts are relatively large particles, I/32 to 1 /4 inch, in the form of cylinders, spheres, or granules. Slurry or fluidized-bed catalysts are fine powders, which can be suspended readily in a liquid or gas, respectively. Fixed-bed processing is especially suited to large-scale production, and many important bulk chemicals are made in this mode. 

Powder coating is a solventless coating system that is not dependent upon a sacrificial medium such as a solvent, but is based on the performance constituents of solid TP or TS plastics. It can be a homogeneous blend of the plastic with fillers and additives in the form of a dry, fine-particle-size compound similar to flour. The three basic methods are the fluidized bed, electrostatic spray, and electrostatic fluidized bed processes (9). 

Gas velocity is an important operating condition in the fluidized bed process and it can highly affect the attrition of dry sorbents. Therefore, the weight remaining in the bed with fluidization time for gas velocity of 20.59 cm/s, 25.74 cm/s, and 30.89 cm/s was measured to estimate the attrition of dry sorbent with gas velocity. As shown in Fig. 4, attrition mainly occurred in the early stage of fluidization. The attrition rate with time decreased and the regression equations fit natural log functions. In addition, Fig. 4 shows that the attrition of dry sorbents is highly affected by gas velocity in the fluidized bed process. 

In the fluidized bed process, attrition caused dry sorbent to be carryover. This mainly occurred in the early stage of fluidization and was highly affected by gas velocity. The amount of attrition of molecular sieve 5 A and molecular sieve 13X were larger than those of activated carbon and activated alumina. In addition, percentage losses of adsorption capacities of molecular sieve 5A and molecular 13X were 14.5% and 13.5%, whereas those of activated carbon and activated alumina were 8.3% and 8.1%, respectively. This is because retention time of molecular sieve 5A and molecular 13X decreased due to elutriation of particle generated from attrition. Also, Ka of activated alumina and activated carbon were the lower than those of Molecular sieve 13X and 5A. Consequently, molecular sieve 5A and molecular 13X could cause high maintenance cost for dry sorbent and problems in the operation of fluidized bed process. 

Either naphthalene or ortho-xylene is an acceptable starting material for partial oxidation to phthalic anhydride, but current raw materials costs favor the former as a starting material. Both fixed and fluidized bed processes have been used on a commercial scale, but you are to focus your attention on the former. Figure 13.5 is a schematic flow diagram of the proposed process. Most research groups that have studied the catalytic oxidation of naphthalene over vanadium pentoxide agree that the principal reactions are... 

The early 1970 s saw the development of many new coal-based, synthetic-fuel, fluidized-bed processes which operated at high pressures. The scientists and engineers charged with designing these processes realized that there was a severe lack of information on how pressure (and also temperature) affected the operation of fluidized beds. Therefore, several studies to determine the effect of pressure on the operation of fluidized beds were commissioned. During the same period, other researchers in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. were also starting to conduct research to determine the effects that temperature and pressure have on fluidized systems. 

Most fluidized-bed processes operate within the temperature and pressure ranges of ambient to 1100°C and ambient to 70 bar, respectively. Over this temperature range, gas viscosity increases by a factor of about 3 to 4, depending upon the type of gas. If the pressure of the system remains constant while temperature is changed, the gas density decreases over this temperature range by a factor of 1373/293 = 4.7. If system pressure is increased without changing temperature, the gas density is increased by the same factor as the pressure ratio—which would be approximately 70 1 for a change in pressure from ambient to 70 bar. 

The attrition rate, i.e., the rate of generation of fines, 0-d microns, at the submerged jets in a fluidized bed, tends to fall off asymptotically with time to a steady-state rate as shown in Fig. 9. Initially the attrition rate is high due to the wearing off of angular comers. Typically, it takes long time, hours to days, for the particles to reach steady-state (equilibrium) where the particles tend to be more rounded. For most catalytic fluidized bed processes, the bed operates at equilibrium. That means the most significant part of the attrition rate curve is the steady-state rate. 

A lot of attempts have been made to describe the time dependence of the attrition rate in batch fluidized bed processes. Gwyn (1969) studied the degradation of catalysts in a small-scale test apparatus and defined the elutriated particles as the only attrition product. He described the increase of the elutriated mass, Wel, with time, t, based on the initial solid bed mass, Wbed 0, by the now widely known Gwyn equation ... 

Special attention has to be paid to a definition of attrition rates in the case of continuous processes where fresh solid material is continuously added. This is particularly the case in heterogeneously catalyzed fluidized bed processes where fresh make-up catalyst must be added to compensate for attrition losses. The fresh catalyst may contain elutriable fines which add to the measurable elutriation rate thus leading to an apparently higher attrition rate. 

Both devices described above were developed in order to test the friability of fluid-cracking catalysts. Nowadays the application of these or similar tests is a common procedure in the development of fluidized bed catalysts. Contractor et al. (1989), for example, used a submerged-jet test to compare the attrition resistance of newly developed VPO catalysts. In fact, such tests can be applied to any type of fluidized bed processes. Sometimes they have to be slightly modified to adapt them to the process under consideration. The drilled plate may, for example, be substituted by... 

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