Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742

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Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

CFD modeling of the coke combustion in an industrial FCC regenerator

Benjamin Amblard a,⇑, Raj Singh b, Eusebius Gbordzoe b, Ludovic Raynal a
a
IFP Energies nouvelles, France
b
Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology, Houston, United States

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

CFD modeling of the coke combustion

in an industrial FCC regenerator.

Development of a coke combustion
kinetic model from lab experiments.

Acquirement of FCC regenerator
industrial data including catalyst
samples analysis.

Comparison of simulation data with
industrial data.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is one of the most important conversion processes used in refineries all
Received 30 August 2016 over the world. It is used for the conversion of heavy oil feed with high boiling temperature to produce
Received in revised form 14 November 2016 gasoline, diesel, propylene and other valuable products. Coke deposits on the catalyst during the catalytic
Accepted 15 December 2016
conversion and deactivates it, therefore catalyst is continuously regenerated in the FCC process. The
Available online 26 December 2016
regeneration step is essential as it directly impacts the products yields. The coke combustion also gener-
ates NOx and SOx emissions which levels are highly influenced by the bed hydrodynamics, the operation
Keywords:
parameters and the reactor configuration, and are important to quantify. For all these reasons, the under-
Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC)
FCC regenerator
standing of the regenerator hydrodynamic and kinetic is essential.
Coke combustion kinetics This paper presents a study on the coupling of BarracudaTM CFD code with a coke combustion kinetic
Hydrodynamic model developed at IFP Energies nouvelles to simulate an industrial FCC regenerator. Regenerator oper-
Heat transfer ating and performance data, including catalyst samples for coke analysis, are acquired on a selected
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) industrial unit to evaluate the model. The results provide useful insight on the regenerator performance
characteristics in terms of air distribution, coke burning rate and temperature profile in the regenerator.
The steady state flue gas composition and regenerator dense and dilute phase temperatures are well pre-
dicted by the CFD simulation. The CFD prediction of the bed density is underestimated compared to the
industrial data. The duration required to completely regenerate the catalyst is also estimated from the
results. The CFD coupled coke combustion kinetic model presented in this paper enables us to evaluate
the influence of the fluidized bed hydrodynamic on the catalyst regeneration in an industrial FCC regen-
erator. The developed model serves as a useful tool for the evaluation of future technology development
in the FCC regenerator.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: benjamin.amblard@ifpen.fr (B. Amblard).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2016.12.055
0009-2509/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
732 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742
Nomenclature
C(s) carbon on coke (mol)
CC concentration of carbon (molm3)
PO2 partial pressure of component O2 (atm)
rC carbon combustion rate (kgCOKE/kgCATs)
H(s) hydrogen on coke (mol)
H hydrogen concentration in coke deposited on the cata-
lyst at time t (wt%)
1. Introduction
Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is one of the most important con-
version processes used in refineries all over the world. It is used for
the conversion of heavy oil feedstock with high boiling tempera-
ture to produce gasoline, diesel and light olefins. In this process,
a zeolite-based catalyst is used to crack the long hydrocarbon
molecules of the feed; detailed information on the catalyst struc-
ture and the catalytic cracking reactions can be found in
Sadeghbeigi (2011). The FCC process has continuously evolved over
the last 80 years going from a fixed bed technology to the current
circulating fluidized bed technology (Avidan and Shinnar, 1990;
Murphy, 1992). It is now a key process in refineries and is used
in more than half of them. Fig. 1 presents the reaction scheme of
a circulating fluidized bed FCC process. The feed is injected into
the riser section of the reactor where it gets cracked when it comes
in contact with the zeolite-based catalyst. The cracking reactions
deposit coke on the catalyst as a reaction by-product, which causes
its deactivation. The deactivated catalyst is then sent to a regener-
ator where the coke on catalyst is burnt in contact with air, and
part of the combustion heat is absorbed by the catalyst. Finally,
the catalyst carries the heat generated by the combustion back to
the reactor, where it is then consumed for the vaporization of
the feed and the endothermic cracking reactions.
The evolution toward heavier FCC feedstock as well as the com-
plex hydrodynamic of gas/particles flows led to the development of
dedicated technologies (Gauthier et al., 2000; Gauthier, 2009). One
example is the development of the R2RTM Resid FCC, concept devel-
oped to process feedstock with a high Conradson Carbon Residue
(Letzsch et al., 1983). This technology is developed and licensed
Fig. 1. Scheme of the FCC process.
pO2 partial pressure of component O2 (atm)
H hydrogen concentration in coke deposited on the cata-
lyst at time t (wt%)
r CO catatytic CO catalytic oxidation rate (mol-CO/gCATmin)
3 1
r CO homogeneous CO homogeneous oxidation rate (molcm s )
by the FCC Alliance which comprises AXENS, TECHNIP, TOTAL
and IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN). The study presented in this
paper focuses on the 2nd stage regenerator of a FCC Alliance
R2RTM Resid FCC unit whose schematic diagram is presented in
Fig. 2.
As shown in Fig. 2, hot regenerated catalyst flows from the 2nd
stage regenerator to the riser bottom where it is contacted with
finely atomized feedstock. At the riser top, the RS2 riser termina-
tion device rapidly disengages vapor products from the catalyst
to reduce further thermal and catalytic cracking. The spent catalyst
then flows down the stripper section comprising of proprietary
structured stripping packing, where it is contacted counter-
currently with steam. Steam plays the role of fluidization and strip-
ping media, strips the hydrocarbons from the catalyst before it
leaves the stripper. The hydrocarbon stripped spent catalyst is then
sent to the regeneration section. The regeneration of the deacti-
vated catalyst is carried out in two fluidized bed regenerators in
series. The first regenerator acts as a mild pre-combustion zone
to achieve 50–70% of the coke combustion. The partially regener-
ated catalyst with less than 0.5 wt% coke is then transferred to
2nd stage regenerator where complete regeneration is achieved,
with slight excess O2 and at low steam concentrations to minimize
catalyst deactivation.
The regeneration of spent catalyst is key to the FCC process. The
performance of the FCC regenerator such as the low residual coke
on the regenerated catalyst depends highly on the effective distri-
bution of combustion air and spent catalyst. Any mal-distribution
of air and spent catalyst can lead to poor regenerator performance
such as afterburn, catalyst losses and inadequate regeneration,
which can directly impact the catalyst circulation rate and there-
fore the products yield (Avidan and Shinnar, 1990). Moreover,
the coke burning reactions generate NOx and SOx emissions which
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a FCC alliance R2RTM Resid FCC unit.
 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742 733

are important to quantify for environmental requirements (Occelli, For the CO/CO2 ratio, most of the study showed that the main
2010). Therefore, the complete understanding of how the hydrody- influencing parameter is temperature (Weisz et al., 1966b).
namic characteristics of the regenerator catalyst bed affects the Errazu et al. (1979) proposed the following correlation:
coke combustion kinetics is very essential. 8
9:53  104 e RT
5585

Computational Fluid Dynamic techniques are increasingly used >

< if T < 803 K
CO
in the oil and gas industry for the understanding and the develop- ¼ 1 þ ðT  803Þ1:42  103 if 803 < T < 873
CO2 >
:
ment of processes and technologies (Raynal et al., 2016; Ranade, 1 þ ðT  803Þ6:1  103 if T > 873 K
2002). Within the last years, the advancement of CFD software’s
enabled the industry to perform three dimensional modeling of Doolin et al. (1991) showed the effect of metal contaminants
fluidized bed, including both hydrodynamic as well as reaction such as nickel and vanadium on the CO/CO2 ratio and developed
kinetics. In this paper, we present a study on the coupling of com- correlations considering this effect.
mercial CFD software with a coke combustion kinetic model devel- For the hydrogen oxidation, the following heterogeneous reac-
oped at IFPEN to simulate the 2nd stage regenerator of an tion is usually considered:
industrial R2RTM Resid FCC unit, designed by the FCC Alliance. This HðsÞ þ 0:25O2 ! 0:5H2 O ð6Þ
work is the results of different steps:
The coke hydrogen oxidation reaction is complex to character-

A coke combustion kinetic model was developed from labora- ize due to the difficulty to accurately determine the amount of
tory scale experiments at IFPEN. hydrogen in the coke on the spent catalyst. Wang et al. (1986) pro-

The coke combustion kinetic model was then used for the posed the following equation for the hydrogen combustion rate:
development of a CFD based kinetic tool to predict the regener- dH
ator hydrodynamic and kinetic behavior. For this purpose, the ¼ 2:47  1010 e37:66=RT PO2 H ð7Þ
dt
kinetic rate equations were incorporated into the BarracudaTM
Two other coke compounds, Sulfur (S) and Nitrogen (N) are also
CFD code, a commercial software specific for gas/particles flow
mentioned in the literature. However, their oxidation reaction
simulations.
kinetic is much less documented compared to the carbon and

For model validation, operating data as well as unit perfor-
hydrogen oxidation. As explained by Dimitriadis and Vasalos
mance data were acquired on the selected industrial unit,
(1992), the sulfur from the coke is oxidized mainly into SO2. For
including spent and regenerated catalyst samples which were
the nitrogen on coke, as explained by Babich et al. (2005), it can
analyzed at IFPEN to get the Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and
be converted into NOx or N2. Stevenson et al. (2005) developed a
Sulfur (C, H, N, S) contents in the coke.
kinetic model from laboratory experiments where nitrogen from

Finally, CFD simulations were performed and the results of the
coke is first volatized into HCN which is then oxidized into NO or
simulation were compared with industrial data.
hydrolyzed to NH3. They also showed that NO can be reduced to
N2; this reaction being accelerated by the presence of CO.
The following section completes this introduction with a
Finally, the oxidation of the carbon monoxide (CO) is considered
literature review on the kinetic characterization of the FCC coke
for the coke combustion kinetic with the following reaction:
combustion and on the modeling of FCC regenerators.
CO þ 0:5O2 ! CO2 ð8Þ
2. Background Two types of carbon monoxide oxidation are taken into account,
the catalytic and homogenous gas phase oxidation. For the
2.1. Kinetic characterization of the FCC coke combustion catalytic oxidation of the carbon monoxide, Tone et al. (1972)
proposed the following correlation:
Kinetic study of the FCC coke combustion is a wide topic that
has been studied for many years. The purpose of this section is rCO catalytic ¼ 4:003e13;700=RT ð9Þ
to provide a brief overview of the reactions usually taken into
The homogeneous carbon monoxide oxidation in the gas
account in FCC regenerator kinetic modeling (further discussed in
phase has been widely studied. Dryer and Glassman (1973)
the next section). Detailing the kinetic studies being out of the
proposed the following correlation including the oxygen and water
scope of this article, readers are advised to refer to the cited studies
concentration.
for more information.
Most of the kinetic studies on FCC coke combustion focus on rCO homogeneous ¼ 1014:6 e40;000=RT ½CO½O2 0:5 ½H2 O0:5 ð10Þ
two elements which are the Carbon(C) and Hydrogen (H). For the
coke carbon compound, two heterogeneous reactions are usually
considered: 2.2. Modeling of FCC regenerators

CðsÞ þ 0:5O2 ! CO ð1Þ Different studies can be found in the literature on the modeling
CðsÞ þ O2 ! CO2 ð2Þ of FCC regenerators with the coupling of hydrodynamic and kinetic
models. In their approach, Lee et al. (1989) coupled a kinetic model
Two parameters are then important to characterize, the carbon
and a heat balance model with a two-phase flow one dimensional
combustion rate and the CO/CO2 ratio. Various kinetic equations
hydrodynamic model to simulate an industrial FCC regenerator. In
can be found in the literature for the carbon combustion rate, of
the hydrodynamic model, the fluidized bed is divided into a bubble
which some of them are shown in Table 1.
phase and an emulsion phase. The bubble phase is modeled as a
plug flow reactor (PFR) while the emulsion phase is modeled as a
Table 1 continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) with mass transfer occur-
Example of carbon combustion rate equations that can be found in the literature. ring between the two phases. They also included a jet grid model
to take into account the air distributor effect. The model predicted
r C ¼ 4  107 e157;000=RT C C (1) Weisz et al. (1966a)
more qualitative than quantitative results in term of temperature
rC ¼ 3  105 e109;621=RT C C P O2 (2) Hano et al. (1975)
and coke combustion rate. A similar approach was used by Filho
rC ¼ 2:788 e161;100=RT C C P O2 (3) Wang et al. (1986)
et al. (1996) to simulate the regenerator of an industrial unit oper-
734 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742

ated by Petrobras. In their hydrodynamic model, they assumed a namic model to three dimensional CFD model coupled with kinetic
jet zone above the air injection where no reaction occurs. Good and energy models. The main advantage of the CFD modeling is
agreement was found between the experimental and predicted that three dimensional effects can be taken into account and the
regenerator temperatures. influence of the regenerator design (shape, internals, air injection)
Within the last twenty years, CFD tools became more popular can be investigated. The CFD studies presented in this literature
for modeling the hydrodynamic behavior of the fluidized beds. review considered a mean diameter for the particles while the
The main advantage is that geometrical and three-dimensional FCC catalyst has a particle size distribution going typically from
effects are better modeled compared to a one dimensional hydro- 5 lm to 200 lm. In our study, the CFD code used takes into account
dynamic model. However, CFD modeling at industrial scale the actual particle size distribution of the catalyst instead of a
remains challenging. Due to the limitation in computational mean diameter. Moreover, a kinetic model for the coke burning
resources, the mesh used to discretize the industrial geometry is was developed from in house experiments and implemented in
limited in size to obtain CFD solutions in a reasonable time frame. the code. Finally, for the evaluation of the CFD model, experimental
When using a computational mesh with large size, the modeling of data from a large scale industrial unit were acquired directly on
the drag force as well as the particle-particle interaction is chal- site over an entire day of operation.
lenging. Ozel et al. (2013) proposed a filtering method in order to
modify the drag force and particle-particle interaction models
3. Industrial data
when using a mesh with large cells size. To develop these filters,
these authors first solved a gas/particle flow with an Euler/Euler
This paper presents the CFD modeling of the 2nd stage regener-
approach using a mesh with a high number of cells (17 millions).
ator of an industrial R2RTM FCC unit designed by the FCC alliance.
Then, they carried out the simulation of the same configuration
The unit’s processing capacity is around 16,000 BPSD (106 m3/h)
using a coarser mesh (110,000 cells). They obtained different
of residue feedstock which is a rather small capacity for a FCC. This
results in the second simulation, the reason being that the mesh
section presents the regenerator configuration as well as the data
was too coarse and small scale hydrodynamic flow structure were
collected from the industrial site. Certain information on the
not well taken into account. In order to compensate for the fact
regenerator design such as air and catalyst distributors as well as
that these small scale flow structures are not resolved with the
cyclone designs are confidential and are not discussed in the paper.
coarse mesh, they developed a filter for the drag coefficient as well
as for the interparticle stress model to make correspond the results
3.1. Geometry and operating condition data
of the two simulations.
In their study, Moula et al. (2013) showed that implementing in
Fig. 3 shows the modeling domain which includes the combus-
a CFD model kinetic reactions based on macroscopic experimental
tion air ring distributor, lift line, catalyst distributor at the top of
results can lead to bad predictions since the connection between
the lift line and the external cyclones. The partially regenerated
these macroscopic measurements and local kinetics of the
catalyst from the 1st stage regenerator is transferred to the 2nd
heterogeneous reaction occurring at the gas-particle interface are
stage regenerator using air through a lift line. The catalyst circula-
not confirmed. They performed CFD simulation of FCC catalyst
tion between the 1st and 2nd stage regenerators is controlled by a
regeneration at different scale with the same kinetic model to show
plug valve as shown in Fig. 4. Combustion air is also injected in the
that kinetic modeling should include sub-grid models at larger
second regenerator through a ring distributor to keep the bed
scale simulations.
fluidized and burn the residual coke from the 1st stage. External
Chang et al. (2016) modeled with CFD the hydrodynamic of an
cyclones are used to recover the entrained catalyst. Finally, catalyst
industrial FCC regenerator using an Eulerian-Eulerian approach,
is sent to the reactor section through a connection pipe located on
where both gas and solid phases are considered as a continuum
the side of the regenerator.
phase. Equations for mass and momentum conservation are solved
Table 2 presents the key design features of the lift line and 2nd
for both phases, and the interaction between the phases is made
stage regenerator as well as the operating data needed for the
through the drag force; a mean diameter of 65 lm was considered
study.
for the particles of catalyst. In their work, Chang et al. (2016) eval-
The 2nd stage regenerator operates in full burn mode, wherein
uated several drag and particle-particle interactions models. They
the air is injected in excess compared to the amount required for
showed that hydrodynamic prediction is more sensitive to drag
total coke combustion. Therefore, as shown in Table 2, the carbon
than to particle-particle interactions. Besides, it is also shown that
monoxide (CO) concentration in the flue gas is zero with 8.6 mol%
the drag model with the clustering effect gives good prediction of
excess O2.
the regenerator axial bed density. In their work, Tang et al. (2015)
included a coke combustion kinetic model and an energy conserva-
3.2. Coke composition calculation
tion model in the CFD modeling of an industrial regenerator. They
used the Eulerian-Eulerian approach similar to the one used by
The coke composition on catalyst (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen
Chang et al. (2016). A mean diameter representing the FCC particle
and sulfur contents) is required as it is an input of the kinetic
size distribution was used in this study. The kinetic model takes
model. Knowing the amount of air injected, the catalyst circulation
into account the carbon and hydrogen on coke combustion as well
and the flue gas composition, the averaged coke carbon and hydro-
as the CO oxidation. The temperature of the industrial regenerator
gen compositions can be estimated using a mass balance approach.
dense phase is well predicted. Concerning the combustion gases,
The coke analysis based on mass balance is shown in Table 3.
the CO2 concentration at the outlet of the regenerator is well pre-
Considering no information was available on NOx and SOx compo-
dicted while the CO concentration is over-predicted. This differ-
sitions for the 2nd stage regenerator flue gas, nitrogen and sulfur
ence comes, as claimed by the authors, from the fact that the
components on the coke cannot be estimated from a mass balance.
kinetic of the CO used in the model does not take into account
To obtain this information, two catalyst samples were taken at dif-
the CO combustion promoters that are added in the industrial unit
ferent locations on the FCC unit:
to promote the CO combustion in the dense phase.
One can conclude from the above literature review that the

The first sample was taken in the 1st stage regenerator. This
modeling of the coke burning in industrial regenerators evolved
sample is referred hereafter as ‘‘partially regenerated catalyst”.
within the last 30 years, starting from one dimensional hydrody-
 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742 735

External
Cyclones
External
Cyclones

Connection pipe to reaction

Combustion air ring
section
distributor

Catalyst and gas from lift line

injection into the regenerator

Lift line

Catalyst from first regenerator

and lift air injection

Fig. 3. Three dimensional view of the lift line and 2nd stage regenerator of the industrial R2R Resid FCC unit investigated in the present CFD simulation.

Table 2
Operating conditions.

Unit capacity (BPSD) 16,000

Lift Lift line diameter (m) 0.9
2nd stage regenerator diameter (m) 4.7
line Catalyst circulation mass flowrate (kg/s) 150
Lift line air (tons per hour) 13.6
2nd stage regenerator combustion ring air (tons per hour) 21.5
Flue gas composition at the outlet of the 2nd stage regenerator
O2, mole% 8.6
CO, mole% 0.0
CO2, mole% 9.6
H2O, mole% 5.2

Catalyst from 1st stage regenerator average dense phase temperature (°C) 730
2nd stage regenerator average dense phase temperature (°C) 766
System controlling the regenerator 1 2nd stage regenerator average dilute phase temperature (°C) 763
catalyst flowrate (up 2nd stage regenerator dilute phase pressure (bar abs) 2

and down motion) Air

Fig. 4. Plug valve system at the bottom of the lift line. Table 3
Coke composition analysis (ppm wt).

From mass From sample analysis (Flash EA 1112 Method)

The second sample was taken in the stand-pipe connecting the balance
Partially Fully Final
2nd stage regenerator to the riser reactor. This sample is calculation
regenerated regenerated catalyst
referred as ‘‘fully regenerated catalyst”. catalyst sample catalyst composition
sample
The two catalyst samples were analyzed for elementary analysis Carbon 2 650 2720 20 2700
using a Flash EA 1112 from Thermo Fischer Scientific’s CHN ana- Hydrogen 180 – – –
lyzer. The resulting nitrogen, sulfur and carbon contents of the Nitrogen – 117 20 97
two samples are presented in Table 3. Hydrogen on coke is not Sulfur – 200 179 21

measured with this method as it does not differentiate the hydro-

gen of the coke from the hydrogen of the hydrocarbons absorbed
by the catalyst. nitrogen, sulfur and carbon burnt in the regenerator, the residual
The fully regenerated catalyst generally has some residual coke amounts on the fully regenerated catalyst are subtracted from
which is hard to burn. Therefore, to obtain the amount of coke the values obtained for the partially regenerated catalyst sample.
736 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742

The results shown in Table 3 under the column ‘‘final catalyst com- Lagrangian approach. Collisions between particles are modeled
position”. The carbon content obtained from the catalyst samples through the use of a particle stress function. The advantage of
analysis and the one obtained from the mass balance on the indus- the MP-PIC method is that the coupling term between the gas
trial unit are close to each other with a relative difference of 2%. and solid phases takes into account a distribution of particles with
This result shows that the catalyst samples taken on the industrial different sizes and velocities while a classic Eulerian approach for
unit are representative of the regenerator operating conditions. the solid phase only takes into account an averaged particle diam-
For the coke composition input in the CFD simulation, the car- eter and an averaged solid velocity for the interphase coupling
bon and hydrogen contents from the mass balance calculation term. In the study presented in this paper, the particle–fluid drag
and the sulfur and nitrogen contents from the sample analysis force was expressed using the Gidaspow drag function
are used. (Gidaspow, 1994) which combines the Wen-Yu and Ergun models.
The turbulence of the gas phase is modeled through a Large Eddy
Simulation (LES) approach where the large scale motion due to
4. CFD model and methodology
the large flow structures are computed directly from the gas flow
equation while the small scale flow structures motion are captured
4.1. Kinetic modeling
through a subgrid scale model. BarracudaTM uses the LES Smagorin-
sky subgrid scale model (Smagorinsky, 1963). Concerning the
Table 4 presents the coke combustion reactions network
interactions with the wall, for the gas phase, a no slip boundary
implemented in the CFD code for the modeling of the 2nd stage
condition is applied while for the solid phase, the velocity vectors
regenerator. This reaction network has been developed at IFPEN.
of the particles after bouncing off a wall are computed through
Reaction rates expressions and constants are proprietary and are
normal and tangential momentum retention coefficients. In the
not discussed in this paper. However, the reactions presented in
current simulation, the default retention coefficients of the soft-
Section 2.1 are taken into consideration.
ware were used was 0.3 for the normal retention coefficient which
means that the particles keep 30% of their normal velocity after
4.2. CFD model bouncing and 0.99 for the tangential retention coefficient which
means that the particles keep 99% of their tangential velocity after
The CFD software used for this study is BarracudaTM, a software bouncing.
dedicated to model gas/particles flows. The gas/particles hydrody- The details for the energy equations and how reaction kinetics
namic modeling in BarracudaTM is based on the Multi-Phase Particle are implemented in Barracuda can be found in Snider et al.
in Cell method (MP-PIC). Details on the equations solved with this (2011). First, a transport equation is solved for each gas species
method can be found in Andrews and O’Rourke (1996) and Snider where mass transfer due to chemical reactions is taken into
(2001). The gas phase is treated as a continuum in a Eulerian account. The total fluid phase properties are calculated from the
framework solving the averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Particles mass fractions of the gas species composing the fluid mixture. A
are treated with a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian approach where cell-average chemistry calculation is used meaning that parcels
equations are derived from the Liouville equation. This equation properties (coke composition) are interpolated into the grid cells
governs the transport in an Eulerian framework of a particle distri- and the reaction rates are calculated in each grid cell. Each parcel
bution function f(x, u, m, t) where x is the spatial location, u and m can have a composition of ‘‘solid species” that can evolve depend-
are respectively the velocity and the mass of the particle and t is ing on the history of the parcel. The contribution of individual par-
the time. cels to the total rate of change of the solid specie is proportional to
The particle-phase equations are solved by discretizing the par- the volume of the parcel. In this study, we assumed that the diam-
ticle distribution function f(x, u, m, t) into computational parcels, eter of the particles is not affected by the ‘‘solid species” chemical
each of which represents a certain number of real particles of iden- reactions since the coke represents only 0.3 wt% of the FCC particle
tical size, velocity and position. For the resolution, computational as shown in Table 3. For a given gas mixture calculated from the
parcels properties are interpolated onto the Eulerian grid to solve reaction rates, the heat of formation and enthalpy curves of all
the solid-phase equations. Once the equations are solved on the gas species are used to calculate the new gas mixture enthalpy
grid, the Eulerian grid properties such as gas velocities, gas pres- and temperature. The energy balances of the gas and solid phases
sure gradients and solids stress gradients are interpolated back allow computation of particle temperature. The heat transfer with
to the parcel in order to update its position and velocity using a the wall is taken into account in the gas phase. For the solid phase
energy balance, it is assumed that the particle temperatures are
uniform within the particles and that there is no heat release due
Table 4
to chemical reactions within the particles. It is considered that
Set of reactions implemented in the present calculations.
the heat of combustion is released at the interface of the particles.
Heterogeneous Carbon CCoke þ O2 ¼ CO2 BarracudaTM uses a Cartesian hexahedral structured mesh. The
catalytic reactions combustion CCoke þ 12 O2 ¼ CO
calculation is transient and calculations are performed long
Hydrogen HCoke þ 14 O2 ¼ 12 H2 O
combustion
enough to make sure steady state conditions are reached. The code
Sulfur SCoke þ O2 ¼ SO2 is parallelized using GPU power. One calculation is launched on
combustion one GPU card.
HCN Hcoke þ Ccoke þ Ncoke ¼ HCN
formation
4.3. Simulation strategy
Homogeneous & CO CO þ 12 O2 ¼ CO2
catalytic gas phase oxidation
The regenerator modeling domain, as shown in Fig. 3, consists
reactions NO 2NO þ 2C ¼ N2 þ 2CO
reduction of a lift line section where lift air and partially regenerated catalyst
HCN HCN þ 1:75O2 ¼ NO þ CO2 þ 0:5H2 O from the 1st stage regenerator are introduced. The lift air transfers
oxidation the catalyst into the 2nd stage regenerator at the top of the lift line
CO assisted 2NO þ 2CO ¼ N2 þ 2CO2 through 12 lateral windows as shown in Fig. 6. In order to limit the
NO
number of mesh cells in the simulation, the lift-line section is mod-
reduction
eled separately as a sub-model and the CFD results of the lift line
 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742 737

simulation are used as input for the regenerator model. Indeed, if Table 5
the lift and regenerator were modeled together in one simulation, Lift simulation parameters.

the lift wall thickness would have to be meshed. Considering that Cells number 300,000
BarracudaTM uses a Cartesian hexahedral mesh, meshing the lift Average cell size 3.2 cm
wall thickness would lead to a mesh of 8 million cells which will Drag force model Wen-Yu/Ergun

require a very long computational time to complete. Input data (from Catalyst circulation rate: 150 kg/s
industrial Reg 1 catalyst temperature: 730 °C
operating data) Lift top pressure: 235 kPa
4.3.1. Lift line simulation Blower air temperature: 150 °C
Lift line air flow rate: 13.6 t/h
The plug valve at the bottom of the lift line shown in Fig. 4 reg-
Coke composition See Table 3
ulates the catalyst flowrate from the first regenerator to the lift
Catalyst density 1500 kg/m3
line. The boundary conditions used for the bottom of the lift line
Catalyst cumulative particle size distribution
are presented in Fig. 5. A homogeneous flow boundary condition Particle size (lm) Cumulative weight (wt%)
for the air injection is used at the bottom of the lift, and the catalyst 20 1
is injected on four lateral boundary conditions to mimic the plug 40 12
valve operation as shown in Fig. 4. A pressure boundary condition 65 50
80 70
is set at the top of the lift line, the pressure value imposed being 110 90
obtained from the industrial data. 160 100
Table 5 presents the lift line simulation inputs and initialization Model initialization Temperature 730 °C
parameters. Pressure 235 kPa
Gas composition Air

4.3.2. Regenerator simulation

Fig. 7 shows the modeling domain as well as boundary condi-
tions used for the regenerator simulation. The lift line top configu-
ration is shown in Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 7, each window is
Lateral
represented with a separate flow boundary condition. The catalyst Window
and gas mass flowrates are assumed steady and equal for all win-
dows. The air from the fluidization ring is injected using point
source injection boundary conditions, indicated in blue. Each injec-
tion point represents an actual nozzle of the ring used on the
industrial regenerator. The catalyst going to the reaction section
is withdrawn through a surface where gas mass flow rate is
imposed. This gas mass flow rate is modified during the simulation
to match the catalyst flowrate injected through the lift line. In
order to reduce the domain simulated, the external cyclones
shown in Fig. 3 are not simulated. However, with BarracudaTM, it
is possible to connect numerically the pressure outlet at the top
of the regenerator (shown in yellow) with the four cyclone dipleg
returns. Thus, when a computational particle parcel leaves the sim- Lift
ulation at the top of the regenerator, it will be reinjected at the
line
next time step through one of the dipleg return surface. With this
method, the history of all parcels such as particle residence time,
coke composition on the catalyst, temperature and particle size
distribution can be tracked until they leave the simulation through
the withdrawal section.
Table 6 presents the regenerator simulation inputs and initial-
ization parameters.
Fig. 6. Lift termination geometry.

5. Results

5.1. Lift line simulation

Stable hydrodynamic conditions are obtained after about 15 s

as shown in Fig. 8 where the catalyst flowrate at the lift line outlet
Catalyst from Catalyst from
is plotted versus time.
regenerator 1 regenerator 1
Fig. 8 shows that the catalyst flowrate reaches an averaged
value of 150 kg/s after about 15 s of simulation time. It then fluctu-
ates about (±) 50 kg/s from the averaged value.
Fig. 9 presents the instantaneous solid volume fraction and time
average profiles of the fluid temperature, O2, CO2 and CO concen-
trations along the height of the lift line. The time averaged results
Lift Air are obtained after the simulation has achieved steady state from
both hydrodynamic and kinetic points of view when gas composi-
Fig. 5. Boundary conditions at the bottom of the lift line. tion at the lift line outlet is constant and the catalyst mass flow
738 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742

Pressure outlet
connected to the
cyclone returns

Catalyst withdrawal

Fig. 8. Catalyst mass flowrate at outlet of the lift line (kg/s) versus time (s).
Cyclone
return
Cyclone
Air injections from return the lift line from the first stage regenerator is burnt in the lift line
fluidization ring which indicates that it is indeed important to take it into account.
(blue) The values presented in Table 7 were then used as inputs for the
2nd stage regenerator simulation.
Catalyst and gas
injection through the
lift termination 5.2. Regenerator simulation
device
The regenerator simulation was computed for 170 s of physical
Fig. 7. Regenerator boundary conditions.
time to ensure steady state has been achieved. The simulation can
be considered at steady state from a hydrodynamic and kinetic
point of view after 50 s of computational time, when the flue gas
Table 6
composition and the catalyst entrainment at the top outlet
Regenerator simulation parameters.
remained constant as shown in Fig. 10. It should be also pointed
Cells number 1,000,000 out that the mass of catalyst withdrawn from the regenerator is
Average cell size 8 cm
equal to the catalyst flowrate injected in the simulation. After
Drag force model Wen-Yu/Ergun
50 s, the flue gas composition, catalyst entrainment and the regen-
Input data Catalyst circulation rate: 150 kg/s
erator inventory remains constant; the simulation can therefore be
Catalyst and gas temperature from lift simulation
from lift: considered at steady state. However, the term ‘‘steady” should be
Gas flowrate from lift: from lift simulation taken with caution, since one can see that for example the entrain-
Regenerator top pressure: 200 kPa ment is not entirely steady and fluctuates around an averaged
Blower air temperature: 150 °C
value.
Ring air flow rate: 21.5 t/hr
Coke composition from lift: from lift simulation
Table 8 presents the comparison between the plant data and the
Catalyst density 1500 kg/m3 CFD simulation for the flue gas composition at the outlet of the
Catalyst particle size distribution regenerator.
See Table 5 Concerning the flue gas composition, the plant and simulation
Initialization Model initialized with average plant data data match really well with a good prediction of the CO, H2O and
Dense bed temperature 745 °C CO2 contents, the excess of O2 obtained in the simulation is slightly
Gas composition Air higher. The simulation predicts that the SO2 and NO molecules rep-
Bed height 6.5 m resent 0.17 mol% of the flue gas composition. This predicted NOx
Bed density 600 kg/m3
and SOx results cannot be compared with industrial data since
NOx and SOx composition in the flue gas was not available for
injected at the bottom equals the one escaping at the top of the the 2nd stage regenerator. Therefore, quantitative results about
simulation. the SO2 and NO flue gas contents should be taken with caution
It can be observed from Fig. 9(a) that the dense phase flow at in this case. However, it is interesting to use this CFD based kinetic
the bottom of the lift transitions to dilute flow as the catalyst is model to investigate the influence of regenerator hydrodynamic,
accelerated towards the top. Fig. 9(b) shows that the temperature operating conditions and hardware changes on the generation of
in the lift increases with height. This is due to the fact that coke SOx and NOx molecules.
combustion is taking place as shown in Fig. 9(c) –(e) where oxygen The comparison in Table 8 shows that full combustion of the
is consumed to form CO and CO2. carbon and hydrogen on coke is predicted by the model. Indeed,
Table 7 presents the averaged gas properties and the averaged the carbon and hydrogen contents in the coke used as modeling
coke composition on catalyst at the riser outlet. inputs are obtained from a mass balance on the industrial unit.
The CFD predicts a lift line outlet temperature 15 °C higher Thus, these modeling inputs correspond to the amount of carbon
compared to the 1st stage regenerator dense bed temperature. and hydrogen on coke burnt in the industrial regenerator. Consid-
Unfortunately, no industrial data were available to confirm this ering the kinetic network implemented as per Table 4, when all the
value. When comparing the initial coke composition with the coke carbon and hydrogen on coke is consumed by the combustion, the
composition at the outlet of the lift, about 30% of the coke entering flue gas composition predicted will be equal to the one of the
 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742 739

Fig. 9. Lift line simulation results, (a) Instantaneous solid volume fraction, (b) averaged fluid temperature (K), (c) averaged oxygen concentration (mole%), (d) averaged CO2
concentration (mole%), and (e) averaged CO concentration (mole%).

Table 7
Average gas properties and coke composition at the lift outlet. industrial unit if all the carbon on coke forms CO2 molecules (and
Temperature at lift Average gas composition at the lift line outlet (mol%) not CO molecules) which is the case in the model.
line outlet The time required to fully regenerate the catalyst is also esti-
CO CO2 H2O N2 NO O2 SO2
mated from the model. For this purpose, a group of particle clusters
745 °C 3.6% 7.2% 5.8% 74.8% 0.0014% 8.6% 0.031%
injected at the top of the lift line have been isolated and their coke
Coke composition at the lift outlet (ppmwt) content was tracked versus the simulation time. This group of par-
C H N S ticle represents 5 wt% of the entire regenerator inventory. The
1790 98 55 12 result is shown in Fig. 11, where the carbon content on catalyst
is shown versus the computational time.

Fig. 10. (a) Flue Gas composition (mol%) versus time (s). (b) Catalyst entrainment (kg/m2/s) at the top of the regenerator versus time (s).
740 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742

Table 8 improvement in the regenerator, moreover it also shows the

Predicted Flue Gas composition versus industrial data. advantage of the three-dimension CFD modeling compared to the
Plant Data Barracuda Simulation one-dimension modeling discussed in Section 2.2.
Flue gas composition Fig. 13 presents the averaged axial distribution of solid volume
O2, mole% 8.6 8.7 fraction and temperature along the regenerator height. The quan-
CO, mole% 0.0 0.0 titative comparison of regenerator hydrodynamics and kinetics
CO2, mole% 9.6 9.6 such as bed densities and temperature between CFD results and
H2O, mole% 5.2 5.2
SO2, ppmw 650
industrial data is shown in Table 8.
NO, ppmw 1 050 Fig. 13(a) shows that the averaged solid volume fraction profile
Dense phase Temperature (°C) 766 753 above the air ring distributor is uniform, showing an efficient
Dilute phase Temperature (°C) 763 755 mixing of gas and catalyst in the bed. As shown in Table 8, the pre-
Bed density (kg/m3) 600 480
dicted bed density is lower than the industrial one with a relative
Bed level (m) 6.5 8
difference of 20%, it results in a bed level over predicted by the
simulation.
Fig. 13(b) shows that a temperature gradient exists in the
regenerator lower section. The fluid/catalyst temperature is lower
in the regenerator center above the air ring distributor compared
to the region close to the wall. However, the temperature profile
remains quite homogeneous with a variation of temperature
within the range of 20 °C. From Table 8, the CFD prediction of
the temperatures is lower than industrial data with a maximum
difference of 13° which represents a relative error below 2%. This
result is quite satisfying, moreover industrial data have also to be
considered with a certain measurement uncertainty.

6. Discussion

The CFD model developed for the simulation of an industrial

Fig. 11. Carbon content on catalyst from lift line (5% of the entire inventory).
Fig. 11 shows that it takes approximately 50 s of simulation
time to burn all the carbon on catalyst. The same result is obtained
for the time required to burn all the other coke compounds. This is
a really important insight from the simulation since the time
required for regeneration of catalyst is an important regenerator
design parameter.
The average coke conversion can be obtained at different loca-
tions of the regenerator/lift system. The coke conversion is defined
at the ratio of the mass of coke burnt over the initial mass of coke
for each particle. Table 9 presents the average coke conversion of
particles at different locations.
First as mentioned before, Table 9 shows that 30% of the catalyst
is burnt in the lift line. It also shows that the catalyst exiting the
regenerator to the reaction section of the FCCU is fully regenerated
meaning that all the coke is burnt. Finally, the coke composition at
the cyclone outlet of 96% shows that the particles entrained at the
top of the regenerator are a mixture of particles with different levels
of coke conversion but in average this coke conversion is high.
Fig. 12 shows the average axial distribution of oxygen and car-
bon dioxide concentration in the regenerator.
One observes that oxygen is consumed over the entire bed
length which results in the formation of CO2 molecules. There is
a slight non-uniformity in the oxygen distribution with gas going
more on the left side. This dissymmetry is most probably due to
the catalyst withdrawal line on the right. This type of insights
obtained from the simulation can be really useful for hardware
Table 9
Average coke conversion at different locations of the regenerator /lift system.
Lift inlet Lift outlet Cyclone inlet (top Catalyst outlet
of the regenerator)
0% 30% 96% 100%
FCC regenerator predicts well the flue gas composition as well as
the temperatures in the regenerator. It also shows that the simula-
tion of the lift line before the regenerator is relevant since 30% of
the coke is burnt in this part of the unit. Moreover, the model takes
into account three dimensional effects including the gas distributor
design and the regenerator geometry.
Several points can be discussed concerning the results pre-
sented for identifying further research study subjects and CFD
codes developments. In the regenerator simulation, the catalyst
mass flowrate at the lift outlet was considered constant while
the lift simulation showed that it fluctuates significantly around
an averaged flowrate value. It could be interesting in the future
to study the influence of this flowrate variation on the regenerator
simulation results. The regenerator simulation underestimated the
bed density. The influence of the drag model for the gas-particles
interaction could be further investigated in order to better predict
the bed hydrodynamic. Indeed, the drag force modeling is key to
fluidized bed CFD simulation and it still requires fundamental
development especially when modeling large geometries with
large mesh cells.
The simulation also underestimates the temperature profile in
the regenerator. Thus, the way the heat from combustion is calcu-
lated as well as the heat transfer between the phases can be also
further investigated. The simulation also predicts a slightly higher
temperature in the upper dilute phase of the regenerator compared
with the dense phase while the industrial data show the opposite.
This phenomenon could come from the fact that no heat losses
were considered in the simulation, this point could also be investi-
gated in the future.
Another point of discussion deals with the influence of the mesh
size and the number of real particles per parcels which were not
investigated in this study mainly because of computation resources
limitation. It should be pointed out that with the mesh configura-
tion used, it took about one month to complete the regenerator
simulation. Therefore, increasing the number of mesh cells or the
number of clouds can quickly become unrealistic in terms of com-
puting time. Nevertheless, the continuous improvement of comput-
ing resources might allow using larger mesh size in a close future.
 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742 741

Fig. 12. (a) Averaged O2 concentration (mole%) (b) Averaged CO2 concentration (mole%).

Fig. 13. (a) Average solid volume fraction (), (b) Average temperature profile (K).
742 B. Amblard et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 170 (2017) 731–742
It is always difficult to validate completely CFD modeling against
industrial data where only macroscopic daily averaged data are
available and were many phenomena are occurring (hydrodynamic,
kinetic, heat transfer). Some validation data (catalyst entrainment,
local gas and solid holdups, precise temperatures profile) are not
available to assess precisely the modeling at industrial scale. How-
ever, the evaluation of CFD tools at industrial scale brings an interest
since it shows that macroscopic data can be predicted and since it
also shows the improvement needed for the CFD tool development.
7. Conclusions
In this paper, we presented a study on the coupling of the
BarracudaTM CFD software with a coke combustion kinetic network
developed at IFPEN to simulate an industrial FCC regenerator. Data
were collected from an industrial regenerator including coked
catalyst samples, which were then analyzed at IFPEN with specific
methods to get the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur (C, H, N,
S) contents in the coke. The kinetic network equations were then
implemented in the CFD code BarracudaTM. Finally, the modeling
input data such as coke composition, air flowrates, catalyst circula-
tion, temperature, pressure were taken from the industrial data
and used as inputs for the model. The results of the simulation
were then compared with industrial data. A good agreement was
found between the industrial and the predicted flue gas composi-
tion and temperature profile. The bed density predicted was lower
than the industrial data resulting in a higher bed level prediction.
Useful insights were obtained from the simulation such as the oxy-
gen content, temperature and solid holdup profiles. The duration
required to regenerate the catalyst, was also estimated from the
simulation. The modeling method presented in this paper enables
to evaluate the influence of the fluidized bed hydrodynamic on the
kinetic of the coke burning in an industrial regenerator. CFD mod-
eling remains a powerful tool with which different geometrical
configurations and different operating conditions can be modeled
and compared relatively to each other for trouble shooting or tech-
nology development.
Acknowledgment
This work has been performed within the R&D program of the
FCC Alliance without which it could not have been possible to both
get industrial results and perform high level CFD calculations. All
FCC Alliance members who have made this work possible are
gratefully acknowledged.
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