Dual fluidized bed rig

Problem

Chemical looping combustion and some clean hydrogen processes move solid particles in a loop between two connected fluidized beds. The solid circulation rate is a key operating variable in these systems. Measuring it continuously, without disturbing the flow, is hard. That was the goal of my MS research.

What I built

I built a cold flow dual circulating fluidized bed rig from scratch. Cold flow means it runs on air at room temperature, so the solids can be watched through the clear columns and measured safely. Gary Stowe helped me build the reactor, and Jeff McCaskill helped me get the circulation materials.

I set up data acquisition with pressure and flow sensors in LabVIEW, and wrote the Python code that turns the raw signals into final figures. I ran a series of steady-state tests with different sands, bed inventories and air flowrates.

Some of the materials

Some of the instruments

A few of the instruments on the rig. The full setup includes more equipment that is not shown here.

Method and results

The measurement method is covered by an invention disclosure under review at the University of Oklahoma. The method, equations and results will be added here once it is filed. A paper on this work is in preparation with Dr. Baharak Sajjadi.