Final Report Summary - NONSPHEREFLOW (Multiscale modelling of gas-fluidized flows of non-spherical particles)
Many important products are made using fluidized bed reactors, where solid particles are suspended by a gas flow. An important example is the gasification of biomass to produce useful fuels and materials. However, for the design and optimisation of such fluidized bed reactors, most models assume that the solid particles are of spherical shape because this simplifies the treatment of gas-solid drag and particle collisions. Biomass particles usually have a very elongated shape instead. In this ERC consolidator project a team of researchers at Delft University of Technology have developed a new multiscale modelling methodology to accurately predict the motion of the particles in fluidised beds. They validated their models with state of the art experimental tools, including X-ray tomography.