Combustion of slugs of propane and air moving up through an incipiently fluidized bed

A mathematical model is proposed to show the evolution of temperature, chemical composition and energy release or transfer in slugs, clouds and particulate phase, in a fluidized bed where there are slugs, of a mixture of air and propane, moving up through the particulate phase previously set in the state of incipient fluidization with air. The analysis begins as the slugs are formed at the orifices of the distributor, until they explode inside the bed or emerge at the free surface. The model also makes the analysis of what happens in the gaseous mixture that leaves the free surface of the fluidized bed until the propane is thoroughly burnt. It is essentially built upon a simple quasi-global mechanism for the combustion reaction and the mass and heat transfer equations from the two-phase model of fluidization. The aim was not to propose a new modelling approach, but to combine classical models, one concerning the reaction kinetics and the other the bed hydrodynamic aspects, to obtain a better insight on the events occurring inside a fluidized bed reactor, enhancing the understanding of this type of reactor. Experimental data to balance with the numerical model were obtained through tests on the combustion of commercial propane, in a laboratory scale fluidized bed, using four sand particle sizes: 400–500, 315–400, 250–315 and 200–250 μ m. The mole fractions of CO₂, CO and O₂ in the flue gases and the temperature of the fluidized bed were measured and compared with the numerical results.