Review of Experimental Activities and Recent Developments of Spouted Bed Reactors at Different Operational Scales

Abstract

Recent research advances and technological developments of spouted bed reactors (SBRs) have been discussed in this work. SBR has aroused increasing interest since their invention in 1955 due to its flexibility in processing different feedstocks and the high process yields that can be achieved due to its characteristic fluid dynamics. However, even though highly satisfactory results have been obtained at the laboratory scale for different applications (i.e., drying or thermochemical reactions, among others), their full implementation at an industrial level is still scarce, mainly due to the challenges encountered for their scale-up. In this work, an initial short description of SBR and configurations is followed by a review of the main experimental activities that have been conducted at different scales in the period 2013–2023. Advanced solutions such as multi-unit reactors and the use of rectangular geometries instead of the classical cylindrical ones have arisen as potential areas for further study and development to achieve a reliable implementation of the spouted bed technology at an industrial scale.