Fluidized Bed Scale-up

One discouraging problem is the decrease in reactor or combustor performance when a pilot plant is scaled up to a larger commercial plant. These problems can be related to poor gas flow patterns, undesirable solid mixing patterns and physical operating problems (Matsen, 1985). In the synthol CFB reactors constructed in South Africa, first scale-up from the pilot plant increased the gas throughput by a factor of 500. Shingles and McDonald (1988) describe the severe problems initially encountered and their resolution. 

In some scaled up fluidized bed combustors, the lower combustion zone has been divided into two separate subsections, sometimes referred to as a pant leg design, to provide better mixing of fuel and sorbent in a smaller effective cross section and reduce the potential maldistribution problems in the scaled up plant. 

Matsen (1985) pointed out a number of additional problem areas in scale-up such as consideration of particle size balances which change over time due to reaction, attrition and agglomeration. Erosion of cyclones, slide valves and other components due to abrasive particles are important design considerations for commercial units which may not be resolved in pilot plants. 

On the other hand, there is a blizzard of empirical and semi-empirical correlations which exist in the fluidized bed literature to predict 

Another approach to scale-up is the use of simplified models with key parameters or lumped coefficients found by experiments in large beds. For example, May (1959) used a large scale cold reactor model during the scale-up of the fluid hydroforming process. When using the large cold models, one must be sure that the cold model properly simulates the hydrodynamics of the real process which operates at elevated pressure and temperature. 

---