CO2 hydrate slurry production in a fluidized bed heat exchanger.

CO2 hydrate slurry has a high latent heat and has been proposed for heat storage applications. This paper reports experimental data obtained during the generation of CO2 hydrate crystals in a fluidized bed heat exchanger (FBHE) which is cooled by an auxiliary primary refrigeration cycle. The operating range and performance of the system are investigated. A heat and mass transfer model is proposed for the prediction of the performance of the CO2 hydrate fluidized bed heat exchanger based on an existing heat and mass transfer correlations for this type of equipment. The model can predict the experimental trends. The maximum solid fraction in the slurry attained during the experiments was 34 wt %.The production of hydrates in the FBHE can reach ca. 32 kg/h in an open system with continuous CO2 feed.