Mathematical simulation of thermal behavior of moving bed reactors

Abstract

Temperature distribution is a key function for analyzing and optimizing the thermal behavior of various process equipments. Moving bed reactor (MBR) is one of the high-tech process equipment which tries to improve the process performance and its energy consumption by fluidizing solid particles in a base fluid. In the present study, thermal behavior of MBR has been analyzed through mathematical simulation. Good agreement between the obtained results and both experimental data and analytical solution by self-adjoint method is observed. Mathematical results confirm that the average particle temperature linearly increases across the reactor length. Fluid temperature changes in a parabolic manner, and then it changes linearly. Increasing the Biot number ( ) results in increasing the temperature gradient inside the particle to a maximum value, and thereafter a decreasing pattern is observed. The numerical results confirmed that the finite difference method can be used for thermal analysis of the moving bed reactor.