CFD analysis of bubble hydrodynamics in a fuel reactor for a hydrogen-fueled chemical looping combustion system

Highlights: • Computational study of the fuel reactor of chemical looping combustion technology. • The results yield better understanding of the bubble hydrodynamics in fuel reactor. • Increasing the reactor bed length increases the conversion rate. • Small oxygen carrier particles improves the conversion rate. - Abstract: This study investigates the temporal development of bubble hydrodynamics in the fuel reactor of a hydrogen-fueled chemical looping combustion (CLC) system by using a computational model. The model also investigates the molar fraction of products in gas and solid phases. The study assists in developing a better understanding of the CLC process, which has many advantages such as being a potentially promising candidate for an efficient carbon dioxide capture technology. The study employs the kinetic theory of granular flow. The reactive fluid dynamic system of the fuel reactor is customized by incorporating the kinetics of an oxygen carrier reduction into a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. An Eulerian multiphase treatment is used to describe the continuum two-fluid model for both gas and solid phases. CaSO₄ and H₂ are used as an oxygen carrier and a fuel, respectively. The computational results are validated with the experimental and numerical results available in the open literature. The CFD simulations are found to capture the features of the bubble formation, rise and burst in unsteady and quasi-steady states very well. The results show a significant increase in the conversion rate with higher dense bed height, lower bed width, higher free board height and smaller oxygen carrier particles which upsurge an overall performance of the CLC plant