TITLE: Study of Ebullated Bed Fluid Dynamics. Final Progress Report, September 1980-July 1983.

AUTHOR: R. J. Schaefer;   D. N. Rundell;   J. K. Shou.

INST.  AUTHOR: Amoco Research Center, Naperville, IL. Research and Development Dept.

SPONSOR: Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

LANGUAGE: English

PUB.  TYPE: Technical Report

PUB.  COUNTRY: United States

SOURCE: Department of Energy [DE],  Jul 83,  352p.

NTIS REPORT NO.: DE84010230

ABSTRACT:

The fluid dynamics occurring in HRI's H-coal process development unit coal liquefaction reactor during Run PDU-10 were measured and compared with Amoco Oil cold-flow fluidization results. It was found that catalyst bed expansions and gas holdups are higher in the PDU than those observed in the cold-flow tests for slurries having the same nominal viscosity.  Comparison of PDU results with cold-flow results shows that the bulk of the operating reactor gas flow lies in the ideal bubbly regime. It also appears that the gas bubbles in these PDU tests are rising quite slowly.  Only two of the operating points in our test program on the PDU were found to lie in the churn turbulent regime. Existence of churn turbulent behavior during these two experiments is consistent with trends observed in earlier cold-flow experiments. Two- and three-phase fluidization experiments were carried out in Amoco's cold-flow fluid dynamics unit. The data base now includes fluidization results for coal char/kerosene slurry concentrations of 4.0, 9.8, and 20.7 vol% in addition to the 15.5 and 17.8 vol% data from our earlier work. Both HDS-2A and Amocat-1A catalysts were used in the tests. Bed expansion is primarily a function of slurry velocity, with gas velocity having only a weak effect. Bed contractions have been observed in some cases at sufficiently high gas velocity. Gas and liquid holdups were found to be uniform across the cross-section of the Amoco cold-flow fluid dynamics pilot plant. A viscometer was adapted for measurement of the viscosity of coal slurries at high temperature and pressure. Based on experiments carried out in the Amoco cold-flow unit, a significant degree of backmixing was found to occur in the H-Coal system.  70 references, 93 figures, 32 tables. (ERA citation 09:021723)

REPORT  NUMBER: DOE/PC/30026-T5

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC22-80PC30026