Tomography-Based Determination of Effective Transport Properties for Reacting Porous Media

The effective heat and mass transport properties of a porous packed bed of particles undergoing a high-temperature solid-gas thermochemical transformation are determined. The exact 3D geometry of the reacting porous media is obtained by high-resolution computer tomography. Finite volume techniques are applied to solve the governing conservation equations at the pore-level scale and to determine the effective transport properties as a function of the reaction extent, namely: the convective heat transfer coefficient, permeability, Dupuit-Forchheimer coefficient, tortuosity and residence time distributions. These exhibit strong dependence on the bed morphological properties (e.g. porosity, specific surface area, particle size) and, consequently, vary with time as the reaction progresses.