Development of Experimental and Numerical Tools to Investigate the Thermochemical Conversion of Solid Feedstock

  • Fabian Hampp

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Gasification is a flexible thermochemical process that converts hydrocarbonaceous feedstock, i.e. coal, biomass, or waste material, into valuable products (fuel, syngas, chemicals). This work entails the development of experimental and numerical tools to assess the thermochemical conversion process of a given hydrocarbonaceous solid material. Through this work: i: A drop tube reactor (DTR) is developed following simulation assisted design. ii: A systematic frame work is established to determine syngas composition and cold gas ef?ciency under different gasi?cation conditions. iii: High fidelity numerical models, accounting for finite rate chemistry and DTR geometry, is implemented, and iv: initial DTR experimental measurements of the temperature in the reactive flow environment is carried out. The simulation assisted design of the DTR details the functionality of the device components, investigates the flow conditions, and suggests control parameters. The results demonstrate how basic analytical calculations and computational fluid dynamics simulation is used during the design process. The established systematic model determines the resulting species and provides process metrics including the cold gas efficiency (CGE) following material characterization. Model sensitivity study of feedstock composition, temperature, equivalence ratio, and oxidizing agent is conducted. The high fidelity modeling is based on Navier-Stokes flow coupled with reactive species transport and discrete phase interaction. A global reaction mechanism, involving three heterogeneous and nine homogeneous reactions, is implemented to solve for finite rate chemistry within the DTR environment. The model shows satisfactory results when compared to literature data. The developed DTR is operated and its functionality, as far as particle feeder, gas and temperature distribution, and converted particle morphology, demonstrate encouraging results.
Date of Award2011
Original languageAmerican English
SupervisorIsam Janajreh (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Solids
  • Thermochemistry Solids

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