Analysis of the Hydrogen Reduction Rate of Magnetite Concentrate Particles in a Drop Tube Reactor Through CFD Modeling

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach, coupled with experimental results, was developed to accurately evaluate the kinetic parameters of iron oxide particle reduction. Hydrogen reduction of magnetite concentrate particles was used as a sample case. A detailed evaluation of the particle residence time and temperature profile inside the reactor is presented. This approach eliminates the errors associated with assumptions like constant particle temperature and velocity while the particles travel down a drop tube reactor. The gas phase was treated as a continuum in the Eulerian frame of reference, and the particles are tracked using a Lagrangian approach in which the trajectory and velocity are determined by integrating the equation of particle motion. In addition, a heat balance on the particle that relates the particle temperature to convection and radiation was also applied. An iterative algorithm that numerically solves the governing coupled ordinary differential equations was developed to determine the pre-exponential factor and activation energy that best fit the experimental data.