The staging in fluidised bed reactors: from CSTR to plug-flow

Widespread application of bubbling fluidised bed reactors to chemical processes has been hindered by some inherent drawbacks, like the high degree of internal mixing and the low contact efficiency between gas and solid phases. The staging of fluidised beds through the insertion of horizontal baffles may overcome these drawbacks, approaching plug-flow and limiting bubble size. The authors, based on theory and experiments, have developed a methodology to properly design staged fluid bed catalytic reactors, considering gas and solid backmixing, bubble size, flooding and dynamic forces, which is described in the paper.