Expansion characteristics of an anaerobic fluidized bed reactor with internal biogas production

✍ Scribed by Chun-Sheng Wu; Ju-Sheng Huang; Hong-You Gou

• Book ID: 102315521
• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 187 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2575
• DOI: 10.1002/jctb.1323

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

More realistic dynamic bed‐expansion experiments using a three‐phase anaerobic fluidized bed reactor (AFBR) with and without internal biogas production were conducted for the establishment of correlation equations for the mean volume ratio of wakes to bubbles (k). A predictive model was also developed for the expansion characteristics of the three‐phase AFBR with internal biogas production. The predicted bed‐expansion heights (H~GLS~) deviated by only ±10% from the experimental measurements for the three‐phase AFBR. According to the modeling results, if a three‐phase AFBR is loaded into a carrier with low specific gravity (dry density of carrier, ρ~md~ = 1.37 g cm^−3^; wet density of carrier, ρ~mw~ = 1.57 g cm^−3^) and operated at a high superficial liquid velocity (u~l~ = 4.0 cm s^−1^), the ratio of H~GLS~ to H~LS~ at a high superficial gas velocity (u~g~ = 1.5 cm s^−1^) can reach as high as 271%. A higher fluidized‐bed height has a greater effect on the bed‐expansion behavior because of the decrease in liquid pressure (surrounding gas bubbles) along the fluidized‐bed height. From parametric sensitivity analyses, H~GLS~ is most sensitive to the parameter reactor width (X), especially within a small Δ__X__/X~0~ range of ±10%; sensitive to ρ~mw~, diameter of the carrier, ρ~md~ and total mass of carrier and least sensitive to u~l~, biofilm thickness and u~g~. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry