Numerical and experimental investigation of bed fluidization and heat transfer within a methanation reactor at demonstration scale

•Fully coupled 3D CFD modeling of a fluidized bed reactor with an immerged tubular heat exchanger.•CFD simulation of CO and CO2 methanation at demonstration scale.•Assessment of hydrodynamics of the fluidized bed and thermal efficiency of the heat exchanger.•Good agreement between experimental and numerical results. In this paper, we present our recent numerical investigations on the simulation of an isothermal fluidized bed methanation reactor and the comparison with in situ experimental measurements at demonstration-scale. The temperature of the reactor is controlled by a carbon dioxide cooling loop with a tubular heat exchanger immersed in the reactive catalytic zone. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the CFD capability to predict hydrodynamics and thermal efficiency within this methanation reactor at demonstration scale. A good agreement between experimental and numerical results is obtained for CO methanation as well as for CO2 methanation.