J. Environ. Eng. Manage.

, 17(3), 169-175 (2007)

FLUIDIZED BEHAVIOR AND HEAT TRANSFER IN A BUBBLING FLUIDIZED BED INCINERATOR

Ming-Yen Wey,1,* Chiou-Liang Lin2 and Shr-Da You1
1

Department of Environmental Engineering National Chung Hsing University Taichung 402, Taiwan 2 Department of Public Health Chung Shan Medical University Taichung 402, Taiwan

Key Words: Fluidized bed incinerator, binary bed materials, heat transfer, incineration ABSTRACT The heat transfer coefficient between sand bed and an immersed body is an important parameter in a fluidized bed incinerator. The characteristics of fluidization will be changed when ash accumulates during incineration. When the ash accumulates in the sand bed, the distribution of particle size and density will be changed to form different distributions. The distribution of particle size influences many operating parameters including mixing, minimum fluidization velocity, heat transfer coefficient and hydrodynamic behavior during incineration. Therefore, the accumulation of ash will influence the combustion efficiency or increase the generation of secondary pollutants. However, the effect of ash on fluidized behavior, such as heat transfer coefficient has rarely been investigated. In this study, the effect of different bed material on the characteristics of fluidization and heat transfer between bed and immersed body was studied. The evaluated parameters included: (1) different particle materials; (2) particle size; and (3) weight fraction of different particles. The results indicated that the fluidized behavior of a binary bed material was affected by weight fraction, particle size and density of the added material. Among these parameters, the weight fraction of added particle played an important role in influencing the fluidized behavior of the binary system. The sand bed to surface heat transfer coefficients at minimum fluidization velocity in the binary system was similar, when either Al2O3 or SiO2 was added. Since particle and gas convection was small, the effect of heat characteristics on heat transfer coefficient was insignificant. The addition of particles exhibited a higher density and larger size as well as increased concentration of bed materials, because the high density or large size increased the bed particle packing concentration at the same superficial gas velocity. The contact frequency between heat transfer surface and bed materials will increase significantly in enhancing heat transfer coefficient. INTRODUCTION Bubbling fluidized bed incinerators (BFBI) have many advantages, such as uniform bed temperature, high heat transfer rate, continuity of operation, high combustion and destruction removal efficiency. Accordingly, fluidized beds have been utilized in many industrial processes, such as incineration, drying and coating. However, incineration mostly is operated at the complex bed materials conditions, due to feeding wastes, sorbent, bottom ash, sinter and particle split, etc. Therefore, many studies have discussed the effect of the binary bed material on minimum fluidization velocity (Umf) [1-4], elutriation [5] and mixing [6-8],
*Corresponding author Email: mywey@dragon.nchu.edu.tw

etc. Most studies indicated that fluidized behaviors will be changed due to complex bed materials. But these results did not use enough material in incineration process to provide insight information. The heat transfer between sand bed and immersed spheres is important for combustion, gasification, drying, metallurgy and heat treatment [9-13]. It contains three components, including particle convection, gas convection and radiative component [14]. The heat convection of particles depends on bubble generation that induces movement and circulation to renew the packing particles on the heat transfer surface. When a particle contacts the other particle surface, the heat will be exchanged by conduction.

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Therefore, strong movement and circulation of particles can maintain a high renewal rate, which increases the heat transfer rate [12,14]. The particle convection is strongly influenced by the fluidized behavior. The more complicated behaviors of bubbles, such as coalescence and splitting, will lead to the increased heat transfer coefficient. Nevertheless, bed particle concentration also has an important effect on particle convection, because it will provide a large particle contact surface and frequency [15,16]. Small particle sizes between 40-1000 m have strong movement. Comparing gas convection with particle convection, particle convection is the main mechanism of heat transfer. When the particle size is larger than 800 m, the gas convection plays an important role, due to low particle movement and high interstitial gas velocity [17]. In general, the heat transfer of radiant becomes significantly when the temperature is higher than 900 K. However, the heat transfer of radiant is substantially determined by the temperature difference between the packing particle and surface, so the fluidized behaviors significantly affect the heat transfer of radiant [14]. In previous studies, fluidized behavior was an important parameter to affect the heat transfer. Therefore, heterogeneous bed materials must be considered in fluidized bed, although just a few authors have discussed bed to surface heat transfer [18]. During incineration, the ash accumulates in the fluidized bed. The accumulation of ash will affect some parameters, such as heat transfer coefficient. For waste incineration, a higher heat transfer coefficient will decrease the ignition time. The combustion time of waste was also decreased and the combustion efficiency increased. If the combustion system has a high heat transfer coefficient, the operating stability will also be enhanced. In order to understand the influence of these parameters, a pilot scale BFBI was used with different distributions of bed material and combustion temperatures to investigate the variances of fluidized behaviors and heat transfer characteristics. EXPERIMENTAL
1. Experimental Apparatus and Procedure

1 14 11

10 9 2

80 cm
A

12 13

12 9 8 6 7 3 4

25 cm 50 cm 25 cm

35 cm

Fig. 1. The bubbling fluidized bed incinerator.

1. Data acquisition system, 2. PID controller, 3. blower, 4. flow meter, 5. preheater chamber, 6. electric resistance, 7. position of heat transfer probe and feeding, 8. solid bed, 9. thermocouple, 10. secondary combustion chamber, 11. sampling points, 12. cyclone, 13. bag filter, 14. induced fan.

The incinerator with air pollution control equipments is shown in Fig. 1. The reactor consisted of a preheated chamber (50 cm length), a main chamber (110 cm height) with an inner diameter of 10 cm and a pressure probe (HUBA control, output amperage: 4-20 mA, range: 0-9.8 kPa). The BFBI reactor is made by AISI 310 stainless steel with a porous plate having 15% open area and 400 m aperture to provide gas distribution. The system has 5 thermocouples to measure temperature, and the data of temperature and pressure were recorded by a data acquisition system (ADVANTECH PC-LabCard PCL 711S + VisiDAQ

Professional Version 3.1). The diameter of the chrome steel sphere was 9 mm and was made by AISI 52100. It contained Cr (1.1%), C (1.0%), Si (0.25%) and Mn (0.5%). The heat-resistant properties of (AISI 52100) were: density 7870 kg m-3, specific heat 575 J kg-1 K-1 (in 600 K) and thermal conductivity 39.1 W m-1 K-1. Table 1 lists the operating conditions for this experiment. After bed materials were mixed completely, immersed particles were put into the incinerator. The fluidized gas was preheated through a series of two electrical resistances. The gas was heated to 1000 K in the preheated section. The experimental temperature was controlled by a PID controller. Before starting experiment, the bed material was fluidized at least 30 min. The system was then adjusted to the predetermined superficial velocity of gas for 10 min in order to ensure uniform mixing and temperature. The heat transfer coefficient, bed expansion, particle concentration, Umf and minimum bubbling velocity (Umb) were measured. The detail method of measured particle concentration was referred to Lin et al. [19]. The Umf was determined from the pressure drop versus gas velocity diagram [20]. Those methods of measured Umb and bed expansion were referred to Pell [21]. The above procedure was repeated for all predetermined superficial velocities (5.6-56 cm s-1).
2. Measure of Heat Transfer

The experiment used thermocouples to measure the real time center temperature of bed and used the chrome steel spheres to simulate waste particles. Figure 2 shows the heat transfer probe with the temperature range from 273 to 1473 K. The response time of the combined chrome steel with the embedded thermocouple was 1-1.6 s [22]. The measured method is

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Table 1. The operating conditions for each experiment

Test no. Additives Particle size (m) Sieve size range (m) Additives quantity (%) Basic bed material Umf (cm s-1) RUN 1 590-500 0 Al2O3-545 m 19.5 RUN 2 701-590 0 Al2O3-650 m 20.1 RUN 3 840-701 0 Al2O3-770 m 21.4 9.5 RUN 4 590-500 0 SiO2-545 m RUN 5 701-590 0 SiO2-650 m 13.2 RUN 6 840-701 0 SiO2-770 m 15.2 RUN 7 Al2O3 545 10 SiO2-545 m -90% 14.9 RUN 8 Al2O3 650 10 SiO2-545 m -90% 15.6 RUN 9 Al2O3 770 10 SiO2-545 m -90% 16.3 RUN10 Al2O3 545 20 SiO2-545 m -80% 16.2 RUN11 Al2O3 650 20 SiO2-545 m -80% 16.8 RUN12 Al2O3 770 20 SiO2-545 m -80% 17.6 650 10 SiO2-545 m -90% 12.2 RUN13 SiO2 RUN14 SiO2 770 10 SiO2-545 m -90% 13.9 RUN15 SiO2 650 20 SiO2-545 m -80% 12.6 770 20 SiO2-545 m -80% 14.4 RUN16 SiO2 Note: The weight of all bed materials was 2400 g; the H/D between 1.8-2.3 due to different particle density; the bed temperature was 1000 K (727 C).
Chrome steel sphere = 9 mm) Chrome steel sphere (D:(D 9 mm) K-type thermocouple K-type thermocouple

then

dT (t ) hA = (Tb T (t )) dt mC p

(6)

A.C.: t = 0 and T = T0

e
Fig. 2. The heat transfer probe.

hA t mC p

Tb T (t ) = T * (t ) Tb T0

(7)

based on the lumped thermal capacity model. The heat transfer coefficient is defined by the comparison of the theoretical and fitting real time temperature rise curve. There are two reasons for choosing chrome steel spheres including: (1) the chrome steel spheres are in compliance with the requirement of lumped thermal capacity model; and (2) the chrome steel spheres have heat-resistant properties. Refer to the reference of Yates [23] for a typical figure. The heat transfer coefficient can be determined by using the lumped thermal capacity model. The calculation process was divided into two parts: 1. The equations were:
Qin Qout = E Qout = 0 Qin = hA[Tb T (t )]

2. The experimental data T(t) were integrated into T*(t) and nature logarithm of these data were calculated. Then the least square method was used to calculate the heat transfer coefficient. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
1. Fluidized Behavior

(1) (2) (3) (4)

dT (t ) dt

E = mC p

dT (t ) dt

hA[Tb T (t )] = mC p

(5)

The Umf is one of the most important parameters in fluidized beds, so the effect of binary bed material on Umf is also discussed in this study. Figure 3a shows that Umf increased significantly with the addition of SiO2 or Al2O3. Rao and Bheemarasetti [3] indicated that when the quantity of addition is lower than 10 wt%, the Umf is slightly increased in linearity. When the quantity of addition is higher than 10 wt%, the Umf rises sharply. It is assumed that over 10 wt% addition causes the incomplete mixing resulting in increase in Umf. During incineration, the ash may accumulate over 10 wt% of other materials, and it will increase the Umf and cause defluidization. As shown in Fig. 3a, the Umf with the addition of Al2O3 was higher than that of SiO2 of different weight fractions, because Al2O3 has higher density than SiO2. According to calculated Umf [24], the Umf will increase with increasd particles

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density. As the large or high density particles were added into the system, the average density of system was increased resulting in enhanced Umf. Therefore, the Umf upon addition Al2O3 was higher than that of SiO2 at different addition weight fractions. Figure 3b shows the result of the ratio of Umb/Umf. When SiO2 or Al2O3 was added into the sand bed, their Umb/Umf was higher than those of homogeneous bed materials. It is proposed that there is a different characteristic of bubbling behavior in the binary system. According to the classification of fluidized powders [25], the SiO2 and Al2O3 were classified as B/D and D powder. For B powder, the ratio of Umb/Umf was near 1. However, for D powder, some gas will escape from bubble phase to emulsion phase after generation of the bubbles. This phenomenon will increase the Umb/Umf and the ratio will be larger than 1. Therefore, the effect of weight fraction of SiO2 at different particle sizes on Umb may be slight, but the effect of weight fraction of Al2O3 at different particle sizes on Umb is significant. The basic bed materials and addition materials have different bubble characteristics. When the bubble begins to generate, two materials exert different stress on bubble. The bubble tends to separate and increase the opportunity for the gas to emit from bubble to emulsion phase. The slope of bed expansion ratio was used to measure the assumption of the two-phase theory. The low slope indicates the fluidized characteristics deviated from assumption of the two-phase theory. As shown in Fig. 4, the slope of bed expansion ratio of the binary bed material by adding 770 m Al2O3 was between added materials and basic bed material. All results in this study display the same tendency. This demonstrates that the system can be deviated from the two-phase theory concept when the weight fraction of additives increases. This phenomenon enhances the gas exchange between the emulsion and bubble phases in the fluidized bed. For quantity of bed material, Fig. 5a illustrates that the bed material concentration of the binary system. The concentration of bed material will increase by the weight fraction of additives at a given velocity. The addition of particles renders high density and large size resulting in the increased concentration of bed materials. If particle has high density and large size the gas velocity must be increased during operations. Therefore, when the system of basic bed materials was added with high density and large size particles, the Umf increased. As a result, using the same gas velocity will decrease the movement of particles when the system is added with larger particles. The bed height increased slightly resulting in higher bed particle packing concentration at the same superficial gas velocity. It would provide more particle contact area and frequency to the heat transfer surface.
2. Characteristics of Heat Transfer

Minimum fluidization (cm/sec) Umf (cm velocity s-1)

30 545 m-Al2O3 650 m-Al2O3 25 770 m-Al2O3 650 m-SiO2 20 770 m-SiO2

(a)

15

10

0 0
1.5 545 m-Al2O3 650 m-Al2O3 1.4 770 m-Al2O3 650 m-SiO2 770 m-SiO2

10

20

100

(b)

Umb/Umf

1.3

1.2

1.1

1.0 0 10 20 100

Weight fraction of additives (%)

Fig. 3. Weight fraction of additives versus (a) Umf and (b) Umb/Umf in ther binary system.
3.0 100%-545 m-SiO2 2.5 10%-770 m-Al2O3 20%-770 m-Al2O3 100%-770 m-Al2O3 2.0

Bed expansion ratio

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0 0 10 20 30 40 50

(cm s-1) U-Umf (cm/sec)

Fig. 4. Bed expansion ratio versus U-Umf for various weight fractions of additives.

The characteristics of heat transfer between fluidized bed and an immersed body can be divided into three parts with increases in gas velocity. As shown in Figs. 5b and 5c, when the gas velocity was below Umf, the heat transfer coefficient was low and it increased slightly with gas velocity. No particle convection exists, because the system has the infrequent particle movement. The heat transfer coefficient could be defined as hmf. When the fluidized bed began to generate bubble, the heat transfer was increased rapidly with the

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-3 Concentration of bed materials (kg/m (kg m3) ) Bed materials concentration

3000 100%-545 m-SiO2 10%-770 m-Al2O3 2500 20%-770 m-Al2O3 100%-770 m-Al2O3 2000

(a)

Table 2. Comparison with hmf and thermal properties for various mono and binary bed materials all in 1000 K
hmf (W m-2 K-1) Thermal conductivity (W m-1K-1) Density (kg m-3) Heat capacity (J kg-1 K-1) Emittance hmf of 10 wt % (W m-2 K-1) hmf of 20 wt% (W m-2 K-1) SiO2 223.8 2.9 2600 1155 0.51 228.2 224.2 Al2O3 233.5 7.6 3900 1225 0.54 228.5 235.2

1500

1000

500

0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

800
-2 h (W m K) h (w/m2xK) Heat transfer coefficient,

(b)
600

400

545 m-SiO2 650 m-SiO2 770 m-SiO2 545 m-Al2O3

200

650 m-Al2O3 770 m-Al2O3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Al2O3 at reaching hmf in homogeneous and binary bed materials. Comparing the differences of SiO2 and Al2O3, the density and heat capacity of Al2O3 are larger than those of SiO2. Al2O3 had more than 1.5 times higher volumetric heat capacity than SiO2. The other thermal properties of Al2O3 were also larger than SiO2. However, the hmf of added Al2O3 was slightly higher than that of SiO2 (approximately 5%). It is concluded that the thermal properties had insignificant influence on the heat transfer before fluidization.
4. Maximum Heat Transfer Coefficient (hmax)

800

(c)
600

400

100%-545 m-SiO2 10%-770 m-Al2O3 200 20%-770 m-Al2O3 100%-770 m-Al2O3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Superficial gasvelocity velocity (cm s-1) Superficial gas (cm/sec)

Fig. 5. Superficial velocity of gas versus (a) bed materials concentration versus, (b) heat transfer coefficient for mono bed materials, and (c) heat transfer coefficient for adding 770 m-Al2O3.

increase of gas velocity, and reached a maximum value that was defined as hmax. However, the heat transfer coefficient declined slowly due to the decrease of particle packing concentration, and the result corresponds well with Denloye and Botterill [18]. The increasing tendency had different slopes according to the various bed materials. The characteristics of heat transfer (hmf, hmax and the heat transfer rising section) are briefly discussed in the following parts.
3. Heat Transfer Coefficient Fluidization Conditions (hmf) under Minimum

For the heat transfer characteristics of a binary bed material, a special trend is demonstrated in this study. According to these results, the hmax will increase, when the system adds the large and high density particles. The reasons may include: (1) The addition of particles with high density and large size resulted in the increased concentration of bed materials as mentioned before. The contact frequency between heat transfer surface and bed materials will increase significantly to enhance heat transfer coefficient [1617]. (2) The basic bed materials and addition materials have different bubble characteristics. When the bubble begins to generate, two materials have different stress on bubbles. The bubble tends to separate and increase the opportunity for the gas to emit from bubble phase to emulsion phase. Therefore, the hmax will increase with added bed materials. Figure 6a data illustrate the hmax in uniform bed materials. Additionally, in order to compare the experimental data with calculated value of correlation, the relation parameters were calculated. Table 3 shows the predicted correlations. Figure 6b indicates the results of calculated value of correlations and experimental data. As shown this figure, the present correlation could not be used to predict experimental conditions. If these predicted correlations were used to design the incineration processes, the heat transfer coefficient must be corrected. CONCLUSIONS As above discussion, the fluidized behavior of a

h coefficient, (W m K) h (w/m2xK) Heat transfer

-2

Table 2 shows the thermal properties of SiO2 and

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900 650 m-SiO2 850 770 m-SiO2 545 m-Al2O3 650 m-Al2O3
-2 m 2x K) hmax (W (w/m K)

NOMENCLATURE
(a)

800

770 m-Al2O3

A Ar

750

surface of chrome steel sphere, m2 Archimedes number, 3 Ar = d g ( p g )g , 2 g specific heat of gas, J kg-1 K-1 specific heat of particles, J kg-1 K-1 diameter of particle, m diameter of immersed spheres, mm sieve size of particles, m diameter of bed, m acceleration of gravity, m s-2 heat transfer coefficient from bed to chrome steel sphere, W m-2 K-1 maximum bed to surface heat transfer coefficient, W m-2 K-1 maximum bed to surface heat transfer coefficient of components i, W m-2 K-1 bed to surface heat transfer coefficient under Umf, W m-2 K-1 bed height, m the mass of chrome steel sphere, kg maximum bed to surface Nusselt number, Nu max =
hmax d p kg

700

650

600 0
1500 1400 1300

10

20
Experimental data-770 m-Al O Experimental data 770 m-Al O 22 33 By average Tsukada and Horio, 1992 Pillai, 1976

100

(b)

Cg Cp d dG dp D g h hmax hmax,i hmf

h m 2K) xk) h max (W (w/m

1200 1100 1000 900 800 700 600 500 0% 10%

-2

max

20%

100%

Weight fraction of additives (%)

Fig. 6. Weight fraction of additives versus (a) hmax of various binary bed materials and (b) comparison of experimental data for adding 770 m-Al2O3 with previous correlations. Table 3 Correlations for calculating bed to sphere hmax
Authors Tsukada and Horio [11] Correlation
d Nu max = G dp
0.8

H m Numax

,-

Qin Qout R t T T0 Tb T(t) T*(t) U Umb Umf xi E g g p

Pillai [26] By average

T Nu max = 0.365 b 273

hmax = xi hmax,i
i =1 n

0.82

Ar 0.22

binary bed material during incineration was analyzed. The effect of different bed material on the characteristics of fluidization and heat transfer coefficient between bed and immersed body was studied. According to this result, the weight fraction of additives played an important role in influencing the fluidized behavior of the binary system. The Umf with additional Al2O3 was higher than that of SiO2. Furthermore, the hmax in the system of adding 10 wt% Al2O3 (770 m) was 770 W m-2 K-1 that was higher than that of SiO2 (729 W m-2 K-1). According to these results, the hmax will increase, when the system is added larger and higher density particles. It is assumed that the addition of large particles increases the packing concentration of bed particle at the same superficial gas velocity.

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