Heterogeneous catalytic chemistry is used throughout the chemical and petro-chemical industry. In predicting the performance of a reactor, knowing the gases and solids flow dynamics is as important as having a good chemical rate expressions. This paper gives the solution of ozone decomposition in a bubbling bed using the CPFD numerical scheme which is a Eulerian-Lagrangian solution method for
fluid-solids flow. The ozone decomposition can be described by a single stoichiometric equation and has
a first order reaction rate. The ozone decomposition is a standard problem for chemical analysis and has
been used to characterize gas-solids contact in fluidized beds. The accuracy of predicting the ozone decomposition comes from correctly predicting the bed dynamics. The solution in this study is threedimensional and predicts the coupled motion of both solids and gas. The chemical rate equation uses solids volume fraction, but the numerical method could calculate chemistry on the discrete catalyst, including a variation in size (surface area) if such a rate equation was available. The numerical results
compare well with an analytic solution of the decomposition rate, and calculated results compare well
with the experiment by Fryer and Potter (1976).
Fryer, C. and Potter, O.E, “Experimental investigation of models for fluidized bed catalytic reactors,”AIChE J., 22, 1976.
Performed as part of DOE Contract: DE-FC36-GO14153