At RTI’s Energy Technology Division, we are developing various clean energy solutions, a number of which utilize fluidized bed reactors (FBR) at their core. The key differentiator of our technology development approach is a synergistic integration of a fluidizable materials (adsorbents, catalysts, etc.) and fluidized-bed reactors in conjunction with comprehensive techno-economic analysis, including scalability and operability of these processes at commercial scale.

We have developing process-specific FBR technologies for a number applications including syngas cleanup and conversion, CO₂ capture and utilization, coal gasification, and biomass conversion. We have developed significant expertise in designing highly attrition-resistant fluidizable particles while imparting chemical reactivity for short residence time reactions and scaled up the manufacturing of these particles up to 100 ton scales. The FBR process development has spanned from 1” FBR for initial screening to a 54” diameter transport reactor to handle 2 million SCFH of coal-derived syngas from a coal gasifier. We have also developed in-house multi-physics based fluidized bed models which are tuned for specific technology applications.

This presentation will share our experience in designing and implementing FBRs for two main applications; a) high-temperature, high pressure syngas cleanup using RTI’s proprietary ZnO-based desulfurization sorbent, and b) low-temperature, low-pressure CO₂ capture from flue gas. Development of both these technologies is built upon key developments in sorbents as well as employing tailored FBR systems to impart the best possible configurations for hydrodynamics, heat transfer, mass transfer, reaction kinetics, and scalability and operability of commercial design.