(559aa) Development of a Dual Fluidized Bed Reactor for Solar Thermal Storage

A dual fluidized bed system can easily integrate a concentrated solar thermal(CST) process and thermo-chemical conversion processes because fluidized bed materials can be used as heat carriers and storage matters. However, the design and the operation of dual fluidized bed reactors is very difficult because the dual fluidized bed reactor is generally composed of a circulating fluidized bed reactor and a bubbling fluidized bed reactor. Therefore, the hydrodynamics characteristics of bed materials in the dual fluidized bed system should be investigated and analyzed to design or develop a solar hybridized dual fluidized bed system. In this study, the attrition characteristics and fluidization characteristics of solar thermal matters used for the dual fluidized bed system is investigated and analyzed by using the ASTM D 5757 attrition tester and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model built with Barracuda Virtual Reactor^® using the MP-PIC method to simulate the hydrodynamics of a solar hybridized dual fluidized bed system. The CFD model for a solar hybridized dual fluidized bed system consisted of riser, cyclone, hopper, bubbling fluidized bed CST reactor, and loop-seal. It was assumed that air was injected to riser, bubbling fluidized CST reactor, and loop-seal via perforated plates.