Agglomerate Breakup in Recirculating Fluidized Beds
Abstract
Bitumen-coke agglomerates form in Fluid Cokers when bitumen sprayed into the bed acts as a binding agent and clumps coke particles together. These agglomerates are devastating to the performance of Fluid Cokers as they reduce the yield of valuable refined oil and can lead to premature shutdowns through fouling. A novel method involving detection of magnetic model agglomerates predicts how well a gas-solid downsized cold model unit breaks up agglomerates using an algorithm. In this study, the impacts of changing nozzle properties, unit internals, and feed distribution are examined on a range of agglomerates with different strengths. Redirecting the feed bitumen to the upper banks increases the breakup in the bed by 34% on average. Including the baffle shows an additive impact, for a total of 131% increase in breakup. The algorithm proves to be accurate and can be used in the future for fluidized bed applications for determining agglomerate breakup performance.