Modeling and numerical study on a supercritical water fluidized bed reactor for coal gasification (1): Mathematical model and distributions of physical fields

Supercritical water gasification of coal is a clean and efficient technology to convert coal to hydrogen rich gas. The efficiency and continuous gasification of coal in supercritical water has achieved in a novel fluidized bed reactor invented by our laboratory. In this paper, the mathematical model for the fluidized bed reactor was developed to describe the gasification process. The evolvement process of temperature field, flow field, and particle residence time under wide reactor temperature range were numerical studied, and the characters of physical fields in the reactor were revealed. The model and numerical results may be helpful for optimizing operations and designs of the fluidized bed reactor.