Heat transfer coefficient particle thermal conductivity effect

On the other hand, it has been argued that the resistance to heat transfer is effectively within a thin gas film enveloping the catalyst particle [10]. Thus, for the whole practical range of heat transfer coefficients and thermal conductivities, the catalyst particle may be considered to be at a uniform temperature. Any temperature increases arising from the exothermic nature of a reaction would therefore be across the fluid film rather than in the pellet interior. 

The effective thermal conductivity of a Hquid—soHd suspension has been reported to be (46) larger than that of a pure Hquid. The phenomenon was attributed to the microconvection around soHd particles, resulting in an increased convective heat-transfer coefficient. For example, a 30-fold increase in the effective thermal conductivity and a 10-fold increase in the heat-transfer coefficient were predicted for a 30% suspension of 1-mm particles in a 10-mm diameter pipe at an average velocity of 10 m/s (45). 

Increasing system temperature causes hgc to decrease slightly because increasing temperature causes gas density to decrease. The thermal conductivity of the gas also increases with temperature. This causes h to increase because the solids are more effective in transferring heat to a surface. Because hgc dominates for large particles, the overall heat transfer coefficient decreases with increasing temperature. For small particles where dominates, h increases with increasing temperature. 

In contrast to the strong effect of gas properties, it has been found that the thermal properties of the solid particles have relatively small effect on the heat transfer coefficient in bubbling fluidized beds. This appears to be counter-intuitive since much of the thermal transport process at the submerged heat transfer surface is presumed to be associated with contact between solid particles and the heat transfer surface. Nevertheless, experimental measurements such as those of Ziegler et al. (1964) indicate that the heat transfer coefficient was essentially independent of particle thermal conductivity and varied only mildly with particle heat capacity. These investigators measured heat transfer coefficients in bubbling fluidized beds of different metallic particles which had essentially the same solid density but varied in thermal conductivity by a factor of nine and in heat capacity by a factor of two. 

The parametric effect of bed temperature is expected to be reflected through higher thermal conductivity of gas and higher thermal radiation fluxes at higher temperatures. Basu and Nag (1996) show the combined effect (Fig. 23) which plots heat transfer coefficients as a function of bed temperature for data from four different sources. It is seen that for particles of approximately the same diameter, at a constant suspension density (solid concentration), the heat transfer coefficient increases by almost 300% as the bed temperatures increase from 600°C to 900°C. 

Figure 1736. Effective thermal conductivity and wall heat transfer coefficient of packed beds. Re = dpG/fi, dp = 6Vp/Ap, s -porosity, (a) Effective thermal conductivity in terms of particle Reynolds number. Most of the investigations were with air of approx. kf = 0.026, so that in general k elk f = 38.5k [Froment, Adv. Chem. Ser. 109, (1970)]. (b) Heat transfer coefficient at the wall. Recommendations for L/dp above 50 by Doraiswamy and Sharma are line H for cylinders, line J for spheres, (c) Correlation of Gnielinski (cited by Schlilnder, 1978) of coefficient of heat transfer between particle and fluid. The wall coefficient may be taken as hw = 0.8hp.

In a well-fluidized gas-solid system, the bulk of the bed can be approximated to be isothermal and hence to have negligible thermal resistance. This approximation indicates that the thermal resistance limiting the rate of heat transfer between the bed and the heating surface lies within a narrow gas layer at the heating surface. The film model for the fluidized bed heat transfer assumes that the heat is transferred only by conduction through the thin gas film or gas boundary layer adjacent to the heating surface. The effect of particles is to erode the film and reduce its resistive effect, as shown by Fig. 12.3. The heat transfer coefficient in the film model can be expressed as... 

The static contribution l. , incorporates heat transfer by conduction and radiation in the fluid present in the pores, conduction through particles, at the particle contact points and through stagnant fluid zones in the particles, and radiation from particle to particle. Figure 19-20 compares various literature correlations for the effective thermal conductivity and wall heat-transfer coefficient in fixed beds [Yagi and Kunii, AlC hE J. 3 373(1957)]. 

Particle thermal conductivity and tube diameter have only marginal effects on the overall heat transfer coefficient within their ranges of variation (kp l-7.5 W/mK dt 21-28 mm). This is apparent in Fig. 5 in the case of tube diameter. 

While the above criteria are useful for diagnosing the effects of transport limitations on reaction rates of heterogeneous catalytic reactions, they require knowledge of many physical characteristics of the reacting system. Experimental properties like effective diffusivity in catalyst pores, heat and mass transfer coefficients at the fluid-particle interface, and the thermal conductivity of the catalyst are needed to utilize Equations (6.5.1) through (6.5.5). However, it is difficult to obtain accurate values of those critical parameters. For example, the diffusional characteristics of a catalyst may vary throughout a pellet because of the compression procedures used to form the final catalyst pellets. The accuracy of the heat transfer coefficient obtained from known correlations is also questionable because of the low flow rates and small particle sizes typically used in laboratory packed bed reactors. 

Flow through the porous bed enhances the radial effective or apparent thermal conductivity of packed beds [10, 26]. Winterberg andTsotsas [26] developed models and heat transfer coefficients for packed spherical particle reactors that are invariant with the bed-to-particle diameter ratio. The radial effective thermal conductivity is defined as the summation of the thermal transport of the packed bed and the thermal dispersion caused by fluid flow, or ... 

Packed-bed heat transfer can be conveniently expressed by the concept of effective thermal conductivity, which is based on the assumption that on a macroscale the bed can be described by a continuum. In general, the effective thermal conductivity increases with increasing operating pressure. The wall-to-bed heat transfer coefficient increases with decreasing particle diameter. 

In liquid-solid fluidized beds, the bed-to-wall heat transfer coefficient increases with an increase in liquid flow rate due to the reduction in thermal boundary layer thickness. The heat transfer coefficient was also found to increase with the particle size. The effective thermal conductivity of liquid fluidized bed increases sharply with liquid velocity beyond minimum fluidization, passes through a maximum near a voidage of 0.7, and then gradually decreases. 

Quasi-continuum models Of these, the quasi-continuum model is the most common. Here, the solid-fluid system is considered as a single pseudo-homogeneous phase with properties of its own. These properties, for example, diffusivity, thermal conductivity, and heat transfer coefficient, are not true thermodynamic properties but are termed as effective properties that depend on the properties of the gas and solid components of the pseudo-phase. Unlike in simple homogeneous systems, these properties are anisotropic, that is, they have different values in the radial and axial directions. KuUcami and Doraiswamy (1980) have compiled all the equations for predicting these effective properties. Both radial and axial gradients can be accounted for in this model, as well as the fact that the system is really heterogeneous and hence involves transport effects both within the particles and between the particles and the flowing fluid. 

In the above equations, Cpr and Cp< denote heat capacities of the fluid and solid phases, pb is the bed density and hp is the heat transfer coefficient between fluid and particles. Transport of heat through the fluid phase in the axial direction and in the radial direction of the bed by conduction are described by the effective thermal conductivities, ka,i and kas, while in the solid phase thermal conduction can be assumed to be isotropic and the effective thermal conductivity ka can be used to express this effect. Q i represents the heat evolution/absorption by adsorption or desorption on the basis of bed volume. This model neglects the temperature distribution in the radial position of each particle, which may seem contradictory to the case of mass transfer, where intraparticle mass transfer plays a significant role in the overall adsorption rate. Usually in the case of adsorption, the time constant of heat transfer in the particle is smaller than the time constant of intraparticle diffusion, and the temperature in the particle may be assumed to be constant. 

Fig. 2 The dependence of the overall heat transfer coefficient on particle diameter [4]. Reprinted with permission ACS Symp. Series 196, 527. Copyright (1982) ACS. irrespective of d or G, and our own data bears this out reasonably well. However, no explanation was offered. The mechanistic model presented in Section 4 predicts the continuous curves, which follow the data fairly well. It would suggest that the major thermal resistance shifts from effective conduction through the bed to, ultimately, heat transfer at the wall as the particle size is increased. The radial effective conductivity increases with particle diameter, whereas the wall heat transfer coefficient decreases, hence the existence of an optimum in the overall coefficient, U.

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