Advanced Granulation for Industrial Layered Engineered (AGILE) Catalyst
AGILE (Advanced Granulation for Industrial Layered Engineered Catalysts) develops shaping routes that turn catalyst powders into technical particles for fluidized and circulating reactors. Granulation and spray-fluidized-bed coating are used to build layered particles with controlled composition, porosity, and mechanical strength [201, 164, 188].
- Particle growth and aggregation kinetics in spray-fluidized beds [204]
- Placement of the active phase (zeolite, co-supports) inside the particle [188, 47]
- Effect of shaping on intrinsic kinetics and thermal resistance [190, 121, 113] [patent 16, P1]
- Scale-up rules for shaping processes
Aggregation Kinetics of Technical Catalysts in a Spray-Fluidized Bed
by
Alkadhem, Al Majed, Mohamed, Tsotsas, Castaño
Particuology
Year:
2026
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2026.01.005
Abstract
Size enlargement control and modeling in fluidized beds are crucial in the pharmaceutical and food industries but remain underdeveloped for technical catalyst formulation and shaping. This work uses different modeling approaches to understand aggregation kinetics: single- and two-pathway population balance equation (PBE) modeling and machine learning. These models are trained on a large dataset of experimental results from a bottom spray-fluidized bed, using realistic technical catalyst conditions and ingredients: ZSM-5 zeolite, bentonite, and alumina. Our optimized model is based on a two-pathway PBE with two distinct collision efficiencies for early- and late-stage growth dynamics across nucleation, seed formation, seed aggregation, and layered growth. With this model, we discuss the granulation and agglomeration dynamics of realistic technical catalysts and study the controlled shaping of several case studies with tailored morphologies (50, 100, and 200 μm pellets) under optimized conditions (i.e., maximum yield within the desired particle range) as validation.
Keywords
HCE
MKM
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