Pressure Effects on Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed Behavior

The purpose of this paper is to review the state of our knowledge of the effects of operating pressure on the hydrodynamic behavior of fluidized beds. With the development of coal combustion and gasification fluidized bed processes in the early 1970s, many academic and industrial researchers have studied the effect of pressure on fluidized bed behaviour. This review covers experimental and theoretical studies of effects of elevated operating pressure on fluidization, published in the literature before August, 2002.The review begins with the discussion of the effect of pressurized conditions on non-bubbling fluidization and several methods for better prediction of minimum fluidization velocity at elevated pressure are presented. The effects of pressure on non-bubbling bed expansion in the region between minimum fluidization and minimum bubbling velocities are considered and areas of uncertainty or disagreement are highlighted. The influence of pressure on the dynamics of gas bubbles and bubbling bed expansion is described next. In addition to fundamental hydrodynamics of fluidization, bed-to-surface heat transfer, jet penetration, solids mixing and particle entrainment are mentioned.