TITLE: Gas/Slurry Flow in Coal-Liquefaction Processes (Fluid Dynamics in 3-Phase Flow Columns). Quarterly Technical Progress Report, 1 July 1980-30 September 1980.

AUTHOR: D. H. S. Ying;   R. Sivasubramanian;   E. N. Givens.

INST.  AUTHOR: Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Allentown, PA.

SPONSOR: Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

LANGUAGE: English

PUB.  TYPE: Technical Report

PUB.  COUNTRY: United States

SOURCE: Department of Energy [DE],  Dec 80,  52p.

ABSTRACT:

The 6000 T/D SRC-I demonstration plant will employ vertical tublar reactors feeding slurry and gas concurrently upward. This reactor is essentially an empty vessel with only a distributor plate located near the inlet. Because the commercial plant represents a considerable scale-up over either Wilsonville or Ft. Lewis, this program is addressing the need for additional data on the behavior of three phase systems in large vessels. Parameters are being studied at conditions that relate directly to the projected demonstration plant operating conditions. Air/water/sand 3-phase flow system in both a 5-inch diameter and a 12-inch diameter column is used in this cold-flow simulation study program. The amount of solids retained in the column decreases with increasing column diameter.  At the flow conditions designed for the SRC-I demonstration plant, less fine particles (140 mesh minus) accumulated in the 12-inch diameter column than in the 5-inch diameter column. This finding agrees qualitatively with the increase in dispersion with increasing column diameter, thereby leading to the conclusion that there will be practically no accumulation of fines in the demonstration plant dissolver. If the solids are catalytically active, the performance of the demo plant dissolver will be lower than projected because of less solids accumulation. In addition, for a wide range of gas (0.05 to 0.33 ft/sec) and slurry velocities (0.01 to 0.05 ft/sec) covering the designed flow conditions, the amount of retained solids in the 12-inch diameter column is insensitive to the total opening area in the distributor plate and to gas velocity beyond the critical value. However, the amount of accumulated solids continuously increased with decreasing slurry velocity, thus favoring the dissolvers in parallel operation from the solids accumulation stand point. (ERA citation 06:021498)

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC01-79ET14801