Co-firing of petroleum coke waste and Kentucky coal in an Entrained Flow Gasifier

In the present study, a numerical model for the gasification of a mixture of Kentucky Coal and Petroleum Coke inside an oxygen-fed atmospheric Entrained Flow Gasifier (EFG) is developed. Three mixing percentages of petroleum coke (10%, 25% and 50%) are studied. The Kentucky coal was characterized with Thermo-Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) for the proximate analysis, Flash 2000 for the ultimate analysis and bomb calorimeter (Parr 6100). The model is based on the Lagrangian-Eulerian approach whereby the solid phase particles are tracked with the Lagrangian approach and the surrounding gas phase is tracked by the Eulerian phase. The model takes into account the turbulent flow for the continuous phase (Realizable k-e model), gas phase gasification (Species transport model), devolatalization (Kobayashi two competing rate model), heterogeneous char reaction (Multiple surface reaction model), particle dispersion by turbulent flow (Stochastic discrete random walk model), radiation (P1) and particle distribution (Rosin rammler model). The effect of petcock percentage, wall temperature and the particle size on gas composition and gasification metric has been studied. The present study shows that decreasing the particle size does not lead to the production of more SynGas (CO+H2). Particle size of 334nm led to the highest SynGas production and lowest exit temperature. Marinating a wall temperature at 1,173 K led to the production of the most SynGas.