Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering and Processing:

Process Intensification
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cep

Impact of operating conditions on the performance of the external

loop in a CFB reactor
Shi Yang, Hairui Yang ∗ , Hai Zhang, Jinjing Li, Guangxi Yue
Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Thermal Engineering,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

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

Article history: The effects of operating parameters such as fluidizing gas velocity Ug and total solid inventory Mt on the
Received 18 September 2008 performance of the external loop composed by the loop seal and standpipe in a circulating fluidized bed
Received in revised form 10 December 2008 (CFB) system were often ignored in the existing studies and the limited data are still in controversy. In
Accepted 12 December 2008
this paper, the characteristics of gas–solid flow in the external loop was studied in a CFB cold test rig with
Available online 25 December 2008
a square riser of 0.1 m × 0.1 m in cross-section and 3.2 m in height. The results show that solid circulating
rate Gs in the external loop is a function of the operating parameters such as Mt , Ug and aeration rate. An
Keywords:
empirical equation was proposed for the Gs in the external loop with the operating parameters in the riser.
CFB
External loop
The pressure drop across the loop seal is directly proportional to Gs while is inversely proportional to the
Pressure drop aeration rate. The pressure drop gradient, voidage and solid height in the standpipe are also influenced
Loop seal by the operating conditions. The controversy among the published literature was discussed and clarified.
Standpipe The results of present study indicated that the external loop cannot be isolated from the entire CFB system
for quantitative performance evaluation.
Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
A circulating fluidized bed (CFB) system normally consists of
a riser, a gas–solid cyclone, a standpipe and a solid recycle valve.
These components form a circulating loop, and the standpipe and
the valve are combined as the external loop. In the external loop,
the bottom leg of the cyclone is of lower pressure, while the bot-
tom of the riser is of higher pressure. The standpipe functions as
a seal against the gas bypassing from the riser to the cyclone. At
the lower end of the standpipe installed a mechanical or a non-
mechanical valve that is used to control the solid flow rate of the
system. Mechanical valves such as screw feeder, rotary feeder, and
slide valve usually are not feasible at high temperature and pres-
sure conditions due to their complex structure and moving parts. On
the contrary, non-mechanical valves such as loop seal, L-, J- and V-
valves are with simple structure and free of moving parts. Therefore,
they are commonly used to control Gs by aeration, especially for the
process applications under elevated temperature and pressure.
Due to the importance, extensive studies have been conducted
on non-mechanical valves such as the L-valve [1–5], J-valve [6]
and V-valve [7]. Geldart and Jones [1] experimentally studied flow
dynamics of the L-valves up to 100 mm in diameter, using three dif-
ferent types of sand particles in Group B. Some correlations were
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62773384.
E-mail address: yhr@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (H. Yang).
proposed for the solid flow rate in terms of both the aeration rate
and the pressure drop across the L-valve. Daous and Al-Zahrani [2]
experimentally studied three L-valves with different diameters of
25, 36, and 50 mm, and found that Gs is correlated to the pressure
drop across the L-valve, L-valve diameter, and gas aeration rate.
Smolders and Baeyens [4] experimentally studied fluid dynamics
in the L-valves with a diameter between 20 and 40 mm for Group B
and D powders. It was found that the diameter of L-valve had little
influence on the solid flow rate. Knowlton and Hirsan [6] investi-
gated the effects of several parameters such as the dimensions of
the valve, particle size, and the location of the aeration tap on the
performance of a J-valve. The authors found that the length of the
down-comer affected the maximum Gs . Leung et al. [7] developed
a model for design and analysis of the V-valve.
The standpipe is a rather dependent part in the entire CFB sys-
tem. Normally, the pressure at the top of the standpipe is lower than
that at the bottom due to the particle holding and movement of the
gas–solid flow. Depending on the system design and the properties
of the particles used, the dense bed in the standpipe may be flu-
idized or non-fluidized [8]. Provided the voidage would not change
along the standpipe height, the pressure drop over per unit length
can be calculated by the Ergun equation as a function of gas–solid
slip velocity [8,9]. If the pressure drop changes over any other part
in the loop, the pressure drop across the standpipe will adjust itself
to maintain the system loop pressure balance.
However, some of above studies on the valve and standpipe were
carried out in an open system (or in a free discharge). In such system,

0255-2701/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cep.2008.12.004
922 S. Yang et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926

the pressure at the outlet of the valve is fixed, the only operating
parameter influenced the pressure drop across the valve is the aer-
ation air rate because the Gs is also determined by the aeration air
rate, and consequently the influence of operating parameters such
as fluidizing gas velocity, Ug and total solid inventory, Mt could not
be assessed. On the contrary, the pressure at the outlet of the valve
in a CFB system is various and depends on the pressure and mass
balance in the entire system. The pressure drop across the standpipe
changes to balance the pressure drop around the loop. The changes
of the pressure gradient and solid height in standpipe, as results of
the mass and pressure balance, cause the fraction of aeration air go
through the valve changing, and then change the solid circulating
rate. Therefore, the valve in the latter case is no longer an indepen-
dent part but a dependent one. In the studies with entire system,
the impact of operating conditions on the external loop was seldom
studied and the data available are scarce and in controversy.
Kim et al. [10] studied the effects of particle properties on the
gas–solid flow in a loop seal. They also found the pressure drop
across the loop seal to increase linearly with Mt at the same Ug .
Later, Kim and his co-workers [11] further found that the pressure
drop across the loop seal was influenced by Gs , particle properties
and aeration rate, and insensitive to Ug in the riser. The recent exper-
imental study by Monazam et al. [12] confirmed that the gas–solid
flow of a loop seal is affected not only by Gs and aeration rate. Con-
trast to what found Kim et al., they declaimed the gas–solid flow of
a loop seal is greatly influenced by Ug and Mt in the riser. With a
developed pressure balance model, Basu and Cheng [13] discussed
the effects of operating conditions on the performance of the exter-
nal loop, including loop seal aeration, Mt and Ug in the riser. The
model analysis provided deep insights in the interaction between
the operating conditions in riser and the gas–solid flow in exter-
nal loop. However, there was limited experimental data to support
the simplifications used in the model. For example, they found the
solid height in the standpipe to decrease with increasing Ug when
aeration rate and Mt were fixed, which was not consistent with the
observation of Monazam et al. [12].
In this paper, a series of experiments are conducted on the effect
of operating parameters on the performance of the external loop in a
circulating fluidized bed with a loop seal. The operating parameters
include the aeration rate, Mt and Ug . The performance of the exter-
nal loop includes pressure drop gradient, solid height and voidage
in the standpipe. In addition, the effect of the pressure balance in
the entire circulation loop is also discussed. Based on the experi- Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of the experimental system.
mental results, the controversy among the existing studies is to be
clarified. 3. Results and discussion

2. Experimental 3.1. Operation of loop seal

Experiments were conducted with a CFB cold installation as A loop seal was used to connect the riser and the standpipe,
shown in Fig. 1. The installation consisted of a distributor, a riser, a and its schematic structure is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of two
cyclone, a screw feeder, a standpipe and a loop seal. chambers, the supply chamber and the recycle chamber, connected
The riser had a cross-section area of 0.1 m × 0.1 m and a height of with a rectangular channel. In this non-mechanical valve, the solid
3.2 m, with a smooth exit at the top. The standpipe had a height of
1.7 m and a diameter of 0.08 m. The cyclone used in the system had
high efficiency, and nearly all particles were collected down into a
bunker on the top of the screw feeder. Then the screw feeder fed
the collected particles into the standpipe with a controllable solid
circulating rate, Gs . A bypass tube was connected at both sides of
the screw feeder for the pressure balance. 20 pressure taps were
installed at different heights along the riser and standpipe to mea-
sure the local pressure drop online.
The fluidizing air was fed into the riser through the perforated
plate distributor. Air was injected through the aeration port at the
bottom into the loop seal. The bed material was quartz sand, with
density 2650 kg/m3 , bulk density 1440 kg/m3 , static voidage 0.46
and average diameter of 157 ␮m. Fig. 2. Schematic of the loop seal.
 S. Yang et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926 923

Fig. 3. The effect of aeration rate on solid circulating rate.
flow was adjusted by the aeration air. When air was injected at the
bottom of the loop seal, the gas stream passed through the particles
and produced a drag force on the particles. When the pressure head
caused by this drag force exceeded the pressure drop required for
solids to move from the standpipe to the riser, solids particles began
to move from the supply chamber to the recycle one. Similar to the
L-valve, the loop seal had a threshold of the air aeration rate to
initiate solids flow [12,14]. The threshold was found to be affected
by the aeration location.
At a given Mt and Ug in the riser, the influence of aeration loca-
tion on threshold aeration rate and solid circulating rate, Gs were
examined. Shown in Fig. 2, the aeration air flow was injected at
location 1 or 2. It was found at both locations, the aeration air
flow would initiate the solid movement from the standpipe to
the riser. However, since the amount of bypass air from the aer-
ation point to the riser was different, the aeration Q1 and Q2 had
a different performance in adjusting the solid flow. The threshold
aeration rates of Q1 and Q2 were 1.1 m3 /h and 1.3 m3 /h, respec-
tively. As shown in Fig. 3, above the threshold value, the solids flow
increases faster with increasing aeration rate at Q2 than at Q1 . The
result means that air injection at location Q2 is more effective to
adjust the solid circulating rate, consistent with the observation of
Basu and Cheng [13]. Consequently, the aeration at location Q2 was
used to adjust the solid circulating rate in the thereafter experi-
ments.
3.2. Effect of operating parameters on gas–solid flow
Fig. 4. Relationship between Gs and aeration rate at different fluidizing gas veloci-
ties.
Based on the above analysis, an empirical equation was devel-
oped for Gs only to show the interactions with the operating
parameters:
Gs = 9.6877 Ug0.575 Q21.020 Mt0.543 (1)
3.3. Effect of operating parameters on the pressure balance in a
circulation loop
In a CFB, pressure in a loop should be balanced for stable oper-
ation. Pressure drop across the standpipe can be expressed as [15]
Psp = Pr + Pex + Pcyc + Pls (2)
where Psp , Pr , Pex , Pcyc , Pls are pressure drops across stand-
pipe, riser, riser exit, cyclone and loop seal, respectively.
The influence of Ug , aeration rate, Gs , Mt on the loop pressure
balance is shown in Figs. 6–9.
Similar to the results found in the previous studies [16,17], the
pressure drops across the cyclone and riser exit are directly pro-
portional to Ug and Gs , as illustrated in Fig. 6. Total solids inventory
Mt has no effect on either of them. The pressure drop across the
loop seal is directly proportional to Gs while inversely proportional
to the aeration rate [10]. As shown in Fig. 7, when Gs is fixed, Pls
increases with Ug or Mt because the aeration rate decreases (Fig. 4).
The pressure drop in the riser of the present study is only a
function of Ug and Gs . The Mt has no impact on the pressure drop
in the riser, as shown in Fig. 8. Though the result is the same as

Fig. 4 shows the relationship between Gs and the aeration rate

Q2 in the loop seal. At a same Ug and Mt , Gs increases with the
aeration rate. As the aeration rate increases, the pressure drop in
the standpipe increases with an increasing in gas–solid slip velocity.
And Gs is proportional to the pressure drop in the standpipe.
At fixed aeration rate and Mt , the solids carrying capacity in the
riser increases with Ug . More solids are carried out from the riser
to cyclone and then to the standpipe, causing the solid level in the
standpipe to increase. Then, higher pressure placed on the loop seal
would cause a larger fraction of aeration air to pass through the
recycle chamber, resulting in an increase of Gs [11].
Fig. 5 shows that at fixed aeration rate and Ug , Gs changes with
Mt . The reason is that the pressure drops across riser, riser exit,
cyclone and loop seal all increase with Mt . As a result, the pressure
drop across the standpipe increases to balance the pressure in the
loop. As mentioned above, the amount of air passing through the
loop seal increases and so does the Gs . Fig. 5. Relationship between Gs and aeration rate at different bed inventories.
924 S. Yang et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926

Fig. 6. The effect of solid circulating rate on pressure drops across each section.
Fig. 9. The effect of aeration rate on pressure drops across each section.

that found by Kim et al. [10], the reason is totally different. In the
research of Kim et al., the pressure drop across the loop seal was
higher than that across the riser and was very sensitive to aeration
rate. In order to maintain Gs at a fixed Ug , the aeration rate had
to be decreased. Consequently, the pressure drop across the loop
seal increased greatly and the pressure head required to overcome
the resistance through the loop seal led more solid particles in the
standpipe. On the contrary, the loop seal used in the present study
was much less sensitive to Gs and aeration rate than the one used
by Kim et al., as shown in Fig. 8. The Mt should influence the pres-
sure drop in the riser as those found by Weinsten et al. [18], Li and
Kauwk [19], Xu and Gao [20], i.e. a Mt increment would cause the
height of the dense bed to increase when Ug and Gs were unchanged.
The height of present riser was only 3.2 m, not enough for the bed
to form the saturation flow in the upper part. If the height of the
dense bed increases from Z0 to Zi with an increment of Mt , the solid
flow rate at the exit will increase to Gsi [21]. As a result, the pressure
drop across the standpipe will increase too, driving more solid to
pass through the loop seal. In order to maintain the solid circulat-
ing rate, Gs0 , the aeration rate in the loop seal must be decreased.
Fig. 7. The effect of fluidized gas velocity on pressure drops across each section.
Because the solid input at the top of the standpipe is greater than
the bottom discharge, more solids are stored in the standpipe until
the dense bed height decreases to the initial value, Z0 .

3.4. Performance of standpipe

As mentioned above, the dense bed in the standpipe above the

loop seal may be fluidized or non-fluidized [8]. If it is non-fluidized
bed, the bed can be treated as a transitional packed bed, and its
pressure drop can be described by the Ergun equation as a function
of gas–solid slip velocity Usl [9]:
 
P  150g (1 − ε)2 1.75g (1 − ε) 2
= 2
Usl + Usl (3)
L (˚s dp ) ε2 (˚s dp )ε

and
Us U0 Gs U0
Usl = − = − (4)
1−ε ε p (1 − ε) ε

The gas velocity in the standpipe, U0 , is difficult to measure,

while the bed voidage, ε is much easier. Thus, some relationships
between U0 and ε were proposed. In a transitional packed bed, ε
Fig. 8. The effect of total solid inventory on pressure drops across each section. increases with Usl , according to the following equation applied to
 S. Yang et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926
Fig. 10. The effect of aeration rate on pressure gradient and solid height in standpipe.
standpipes with L-valve, orifice and loop seal [3,10,22]
Usl
ε = εb + (εmf − εb )
Umf /εmf
Therefore, in the present paper, ε and Usl in the standpipe are cal-
culated using the measured pressure drop gradient by Eqs. (3)–(5).
The effect of aeration rate, Ug and Mt on the pressure gradient
and solid height in the standpipe are shown in Fig. 10. At fixed Ug and
Mt , Gs and the pressure drop in the riser increase with increasing
aeration rate, as shown in Fig. 6. In order to maintain the pressure
and mass balance, the solid height and the mass in the standpipe
decrease while the pressure drop across the standpipe increases.
This is the special feature of the transient packed bed flow that can
provide a higher pressure drop gradient by increasing Usl and ε.
At fixed Mt and aeration rate, the increasing Ug results in a lower
pressure drop in the riser and standpipe, while the solid height in
the standpipe increases, as shown in Fig. 10. Under these conditions,
more solid mass produces a lower pressure drop across the stand-
pipe. This is due to the fact that Gs in the riser increases with Ug and
larger amount of gas could be entrained by the downward solids.
According to the Ergun equation, the lower Usl will cause a decrease
in pressure drop gradient and in voidage in the standpipe. The mod-
eling work of Basu and Cheng [13] showed that the solid height in
the standpipe decreases with the increasing Ug . In the model, the
voidage in the dense region was assumed at 0.78–0.84, while the
voidage in the upper lean region was assumed to be proportional to
Gs . The calculated pressure drop across the riser always increases
with increasing Ug at a given aeration rate, inconsistent with the
experimental observations of present study (Fig. 9) and some other
studies [12,22]. At the same time, the assumed 0.095 fraction of
aeration rate up to standpipe is inconsistent with the experimental
observation that the direction of gas flow in the standpipe changes
when Gs increases [11]. Such assumption will overestimate Usl and
the pressure drop gradient in the standpipe. The modeling results of
Basu and Cheng [13] and the present experimental results showed
that the hydrodynamics in the riser could greatly influence the
operation of the standpipe. This implies that performance of stand-
pipe must be studied within the entire circulation loop.
At fixed Ug and aeration rate, Gs increases with Mt . The solid
hold-up in the riser also increases, as discussed in Section 3.3.
However, the amount of solid in the standpipe is unknown. It may
depend on the mass and pressure balance. As discussed in Section
3.2, the pressure drops across the standpipe increase with Gs . With
Ug = 4.72 m/s, and Mt in the range of 6.8–12.4 kg, the solid height
925
in the standpipe increases with Mt . The pressure drop gradient and
voidage in the standpipe therefore have a non-linear dependence
(5) on Mt , as seen in Fig. 10. More detailed studies on the impact of Mt
on the standpipe performance should be carried out in the future.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the impact of operating parameters such as aer-
ation rate, total solid inventory Mt , fluidizing gas velocity Ug on
solid circulating rate Gs and the performance of the external loop
in a CFB was studied. The results confirm that Mt and Ug affect the
performance of the external loop, especially the loop seal.
1. The aeration location influences the threshold aeration rate in
the loop seal. Air injection to the supply chamber is more effec-
tive for Gs adjustment. The pressure drop across the loop seal is
directly proportional to Gs while inversely proportional to the
aeration rate.
2. The Gs in the external loop is a function of Ug , aeration rate and
Mt . An empirical equation for solid circulating rate was proposed
to correlate Gs with the operating parameters.
3. The pressure drop across the standpipe self-adjusts to maintain
pressure balance in the system loop under different operating
parameters. The performance of a standpipe such as pressure
gradient and voidage, must be studied within the entire circula-
tion loop.
Acknowledgements
Financial support of this work by National Science Fund Commit-
tee (50406002) and help of Dr. M. Pilawska from Krakow University,
Poland are gratefully acknowledged.
Appendix A. Nomenclature
Ar section area of the standpipe (m2 )
dp particle diameter (m)
g gravitational acceleration (m/s2 )
Gs solid circulating rate in standpipe (kg/m2 s)
Gs0 initial Gs (kg/m2 s)
Gsi the changed Gs (kg/m2 s)
L solid bed length in stand pipe (m)
926 S. Yang et al. / Chemical Engineering and Processing 48 (2009) 921–926

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