Effective thermal conductivity of a bed packed with granular iron–manganese oxide for thermochemical energy storage

Heat transfer is studied in a lab-scale tubular reactor packed with spherical 0.5–1 mm iron–manganese oxide particles with an Fe/Mn molar ratio of 2:1. A two-dimensional transient heat transfer model considering conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer is developed to simulate the temperature profile in the reactor. The effective thermal conductivity of the packed bed as well as the wall heat transfer coefficient are determined based on the experimental data and a steady-state model. The validity of calculated effective parameters is checked by employing the parameters in a transient model and comparing the predicted temperature profile with transient experimental data and by comparison with existing correlations found in the literature.