Coarse-Grained-Particle Method for Simulation of Liquid-Solids Reacting Flows

A coarse-grained-particle method (CGPM) that tracks fewer particles and their collisions by lumping several real particles into computational parcels is developed. We demonstrate that the accuracy of CGPM can be improved by properly selecting interpolation schemes used to compute flow variables at particle and computational grid locations. The computational speed of CGPM was shown to be similar to that of a widely used and less accurate particle in cell method (PIC). Finally, a chemical reaction mechanism based on rare earth elements (REE) leaching from coal byproducts was implemented with CGPM to study the effects of several flow and design parameters on the leaching process. A countercurrent reactor was studied and optimized to maximize the mass fraction of REE in the liquid solution. The CGPM can now be employed to cheaply and accurately solve industrial-scale problems containing millions of computational parcels.