Interconnected fluidized bed reactors play an important role in a variety of industrial applications, like Partial Oxidation (POX), Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) and Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC). In these processes, a reactive material is looped between two reactors, being used in the first and regenerated in the other.

The exemplary CLC is a carbon capture process, where carbon dioxide is separated from flue gases via this system of fluidized bed reactors. Between these two fluidized bed reactors oxygen carrying (OC) material is circulated, taking in oxygen in an Air Reactor, releasing it in the Fuel Reactor.

For modelling of this strongly coupled system, a dynamic flowsheet simulation environment is applied. For capturing dynamic effects within the system like load alternation, attrition and startup as well as shut-down procedures, simplified models are derived and experimentally evaluated and parameterized.

A novel flowsheet simulation environment called DYSSOL is developed that is able to capture dynamic effects within solids processes. In addition to that, distributed properties for several particle fractions can be handled.

Reactor and equipment models for the CLC process will be implemented into this simulation environment to investigate the reactor system and its behavior during combustion. The models have to be evaluated and validated experimentally. The validated models will then be used to simulate dynamic effects, like load alternation and shut down and start up procedures.

The basic approach for developing an accurate flowsheet simulation is the implementation of suitable empiric and semi-empiric hyrodynamic models for the fluidized bed reactors from literature. Exemplary models are the Werther and Hartge (2003), applied for the air reactor, and of Werther and Wein (1994) for the bubbling fluidized bed fuel reactor. Chemical reactions are calculated by overall kinetic reaction scheme developed for Chemical Looping Combustion of solid fuels. Therefore, the interaction of bubble and suspension phases inside the reactors are included.

Various experiments on pilot as well as lab scale facilites are carried out to parameterize the models and create experimental data for reaction network and chemical kinetics.