Characterization of Liquid-feed Injection Phenomena in Process Engineering by Using Dual-energy X-ray Tomography

M Strabel and K E Wirth

Lehrstuhl fuer Mechanische Verfahrenstechnik, Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg Cauerstrasse 4, 91058 Erlangen, Germany

Phone: ++49-9131-852-9400, E-mail: sekretariat@mvt.uni-erlangen.de

ABSTRACT

For years conventional x-ray tomography has been successfully used to study the flow structures of vertical two-phase gas-solids flows. Now, the additional implementation of a dual-energy technique makes it possible to investigate multiphase (three-phase) systems like an injected liquid educt in a gas-solids fluidized bed. The x-ray tomography system mainly consists of a 160 kV/640W x-ray source, which can be operated at different energy levels, and an x-ray linear detector with 1024 sensitive elements. With a dual-energy technique the dependence of the materials absorption coefficients on the x-ray energy is used. A number of static test objects composed of silicate powder and water have been investigated to evaluate the best x-ray energy combination for the dual-energy measurements. Finally, the dual-energy x-ray tomography system has been applied to determine liquid feed injection phenomena in a gas-solids flow of a riser reactor at high temperatures.

Keywords Tomography, X-ray, Dual-energy, Liquid-feed injection