Modeling of large-scale circulating fluidized bed units

Research Project, 2014 – 2016

Fluidized bed (FB) technology has widely been used for large-scale energy conversion due to its fuel flexibility and in-bed capture of SOx emissions. FB technology is expected to also play a major role in the development of the current energy system towards sustainability, as it serves as ground technology to a number of key developing applications aimed at zero CO2 emissions (biomass conversion into heat/power/biogas, chemical looping combustion, FB oxyfuel combustion).

Despite the relevance of FB technology, the complexity of its flow phenomena results in that most models cannot yet provide reliable simulations of large-scale FB units. As a consequence, the design of new applications and the scale-up and optimization of existing commercial applications are still mostly based on operational experience, slowing down their development.

This project aims at applying strategies for comprehensive modeling which, combining experimental work and theoretical basis, are able to yield modeling tools with a use for both academia and industry in terms of design, scale-up and optimization of FB processes.