Modelling pressure drop to calculate conversion of silicon and methyl chloride in a fluidized bed reactor

Abstract EN

Three experiments were carried out at, different reaction temperatures [250, 300 330oC ], for the reaction of silicon with methyl chloride in a fluidized bed reactor, in order to evaluate a new predicted model that calculate both conversions of reacted solid silicon) and reacted gas methyl chloride) as function of pressure drop along the bed.

The reacted gas velocity was selected to be above the minimum fluidization velocity [velocity selected 2.6 cm / s, minimum fluidization velocity 1.8 cm / s] for the solid particles (size used 130 µm).

A digital pressure drop measuring device was used at three points of the reactor (before and after the distributor and finally 50 cm above the distributor), to determine the pressure drop along the column, also an online GC was connected to the outlet reacted gas to analyze the product.

A comparison between the conversions of methyl chloride and silicon calculated from pressure drop data and that detected by the online GC, show a proper agreement with less than 5 % absolute average error.

Two equations [16, 18], derived analytically, were equation [8, 18] used to calculate the conversion of silicon and methyl chloride as function of pressure drop, equation [16] used to calculate the conversion of silicon as function of conversion of methyl chloride.