Numerical Investigation into Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed Reactors for Activating the Iron-based Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Catalyst

Abstract The present work conducted experimental and computational fluid dynamics simulation studies on the hydrodynamic characteristics of gas-solid fluidized bed reactors for activating the iron-based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalyst. In order to provide reliable guidance for the design and scale-up of the reactor, the present study applied experimental data from a pilot fluidized bed device to verify the accuracy of the drag force model used in the two-fluid model and further used the validated drag force model to simulate an industrial-scale fluidized bed activation reactor. It was found that the bubbling-EMMS drag model can accurately simulate the pilot-scale fluidized bed in the flow regimes ranging from bubbling to turbulent fluidization. Simulation studies on the industrial-scale fluidized bed activation reactor showed that the reactor was in a turbulent fluidization regime under the designed operating gas velocity, with high gas-solid dispersion efficiency, reasonable utilization of reactor space, and low gas-solid separation load.