Chemical Engineering Science 55 (2000) 193}202 A streamtube non-isothermal spouted-bed reactor mathematical model I. Sanchez, G. Mazza, G. Flamant*, D. Gauthier Institut de Science et de Ge & nie des Mate & riaux et Proce & de & s IMP-CNRS, B.P.5, Odeillo, 66125 Font-Romeu Cedex, France Departamento de Ingenieria Quimica, Fac. De Ingenieria, Universitad Nacional de la Plata, Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo en Procesos Cataliticos y 47 N3257, 1900 La Plata, Argentina Received 9 October 1998; received in revised form 14 March 1999; accepted 14 March 1999 Abstract A new spouted bed reactor non-isothermal modelling is developed, in which the spout, the fountain, and the annulus region are taken into account. The #ow pattern is based on the streamtube formulation with a special approach for #at-bottomed reactors. Heat transfers are included by means of an heterogeneous approach. The parameters in#uence study shows the resolution scheme stability. The model results are compared with experimental data from literature for CO catalytic oxidation on alumina-supported Co  O  . Accurate predictions of bed temperature level and conversion are achieved.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Spouted bed; Modelling; Gas}solid reaction 1. Introduction The spouted-bed reactor technique for contacting #uid with coarse granular solids allows to imagine a lot of applications (Mathur & Epstein, 1974). In most cases they involve heat and/or mass transfer (drying, granula- tion, gas cleaning, etc.) and chemical reaction (coal car- bonization, shale pyrolysis, petroleum cracking, particles coating, etc). For scaling up, designing, checking and predicting the behavior of spouted bed units, it is neces- sary to understand and describe well this bed hydrodyn- amics, heat and mass transfers and the chemical reaction phenomena in terms of the main operating variables. A few spouted-bed reactor (SBR) numerical models have been developed so far. These models either consider isothermal or adiabatic conditions, and propose mainly three types of #ow modelling hypotheses. 1.1. Isothermal models Mathur and Lim (1974) were the "rst investigators to discuss the SBR modelling. They de"ned a one-dimen- * Corresponding author. E-mail address: #amant@imp-odeillo.fr. sional isothermal model which divides the reactor into two regions, the spout and the annulus. Plug #ow is considered in each region. This model was later im- proved and tested by several authors: Piccinini, Grace and Mathur (1979) and Littman, Narayan, Tomlins and Friedman (1981). Piccinini et al. (1979), on the basis of Lim and Mathur's hydrodynamic approach (1976), developed a new isother- mal reactor model by adding the mass transfer and the chemical reaction e!ects to the original hydrodynamic formulation. This so-called `streamline modela divides the annulus into streamtubes and each streamtube is assumed to be a plug-#ow reactor. This model has also been tested by authors such as Rovero, Piccinini, Grace, Epstein and Brereton (1983) and Lim, Lucas, Haji-Sulai- man and Watkinson (1991). Both one-dimensional and streamlines models #uid #ow calculations are based on Mamuro and Hat- tori's (1968) correlation. This correlation provides a good approximation of the mean #uid velocity in the annulus versus the reactor height, and it allows an easy determination of the streamline position. No par- ticle #ow pattern is needed for modelling isothermal reactors. These two models have been tested by Dudas, Seitz and Jelemensky (1993) on the basis of the catalytic dis- proportionation of propylene. It was found that both of 0009-2509/00/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 0 9 - 2 5 0 9 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 8 7 - 6