Particle convective heat transfer near the wall in a supercritical water fluidized bed by single particle model coupled with CFD-DEM

Supercritical water fluidized bed (SCWFB) is a promising reactor to gasify biomass or coal. Its optimization design is closely related to wall-to-bed heat transfer, where particle convective heat transfer plays an important role. This paper evaluates the particle convective heat transfer coefficient ( h pc ) at the wall in SCWFB using the single particle model. The critical parameters in the single particle model which is difficult to get experimentally are obtained by the computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method (CFD-DEM). The contact statistics related to particle-to-wall heat transfer, such as contact number and contact distance, are also presented. The results show that particle residence time ( τ ), as the key parameter to evaluate h pc , is found to decrease with rising velocity, while increase with larger thermal boundary layer thickness. τ follows a gamma function initially adopted in the gas–solid fluidized bed, making it possible to evaluate h pc in SCWFB by a simplified single particle model. The theoretical predicted h pc tends to increase with rising thermal gradient thickness at a lower velocity (1.5 U mf ), while first decreases and then increases at higher velocity (1.75 and 2 U mf ). h pc occupies 30%–57% of the overall wall-to-bed heat transfer coefficient for a particle diameter of 0.25 mm. The results are helpful to predict the overall wall-to-bed heat transfer coefficient in SCWFB combined with a reasonable fluid convective heat transfer model from a theoretical perspective. • Particle convective heat transfer ( h pc ) in supercritical water fluidized bed is studied by single particle model. • Particle residence time increases with thermal gradient layer thickness ( λ ). • Particle residence time distribution near the wall follows a gamma function. • h pc first decreases and then increases with rising λ at higher velocity.