China Nonferrous Metallurgy

At present, the Ruthner type spray roasting reactor has been widely used in the process of recovering acid washing liquid in iron and steel industry. At present, the demand for solid spherical CeO₂ particles is constantly expanding, which makes the large-scale production of CeO₂ particles with the Ruthner type spray roasting reactor attractive prospect. Since the roasting reaction process is difficult to be characterized by experiment, using ANSYS Fluent simulation software to simulate the roasting reaction process, the process of CeO₂ particles generated by CeCl₃ pyrolysis can be intuitively displayed. In this study, thermogravimetric experiments were performed to verify that the pyrolysis processes of iron chlorides and cerium chlorides were identical, but the temperature was different: CeCl₃ droplet completely lost free water at 200℃, and completely reacted at 500℃. FeCl₂ drops completely lose free water at 180℃, and react completely at 420℃. CeCl₃ droplets completely lose free water at 160℃, and react completely at 410℃, so it is theoretically feasible to produce CeO₂ particles using a reactor that treats acid wash. Further, the distribution of temperature field, velocity field and concentration field in the reactor was explored by using the two-phase flow and component transport models in the simulation software package. The results showed that the higher the temperature in a certain region, the faster the corresponding air flow and particle movement velocity.