Fluidization Characteristics of a Prototype Fluidized Bed Reactor

The fluidization characteristics of a prototype-fluidized bed laboratory reactor were understudied in order to investigate the suitable conditions at which the dehydrogenation reaction of butane could be carried out. To achieve this, a reactor with an effective volume of 1100ml was fabricated and coupled with temperature and pressure accessories. Zeolites were obtained from the market and clay obtained from different sources and pre-treated was used as catalyst. Airflow at high velocity between 3000-7000ml/hr was used as the fluidising medium to obtain the bed characteristics while butane gas was used to obtain the dehydrogenation kinetics. The temperature of the reactor system was varied between 353K and 413K while maintaining constant pressure of 1.5 10 N/m through a manifold gauge and a constant catalyst weight. Various methods such as pressure fluctuations, visual observations, and bed expansion were used to determine the transition velocity at which fluidization begins. It was observed that this depends on factors such as mean particle size, particle size distribution, and column diameter. The minimum fluidizing velocity obtained for zeolite was 0.0133m/s and 0.0102m/s for treated clay materials both for a particle size of 250μm. The conversion of butane over the catalysts showed an increase in both cases with a maximum at 0.9813 at 413K. This decreases as the reaction progresses. 29 http://ljs.academicdirect.org Fluidization Characteristics of a Prototype Fluidized Bed Reactor F. ABERUAGBA, J.O. ODIGURE, K.R. ADEBOYE, M.A. OLUTOYE