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Kinetic-compartmental modelling of potassium-containing cellulose feedstock gasification

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Abstract

Biomass is of growing interest as a secondary energy source and can be converted to fuels with higher energy density especially by pyrolysis or gasification. Understanding the mechanism and the kinetics of biomass pyrolysis (thermal decomposition) and gasification (conversion of organic material to gases) could be the key to the design of industrial devices capable of processing vast amounts of biomass feedstock. In our work real product components obtained in pyrolysis were took into consideration as well as char and oil as lumped components, and the kinetic constants for a biomass model compound (cellulose) pyrolysis and gasification were identified based on a proposed simplified reaction mechanism within a compartment model structure. A laboratory scale reactor was used for the physical experiments containing consecutive fast pyrolysis and gasification stages using alkali metal (K) containing feedstock, which has a significant effect on the cellulose pyrolysis and gasification. The detailed model was implemented in MATLAB/Simulink environment, and the unknown kinetic parameters were identified based on experimental data. The model was validated based on measurement data, and a good agreement was found. Based on the validated first principle model the optimal parameters were determined as 0.15 mL/min steam flow rate, and 4% K content.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Horizon 2020, Marie Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) (MSCA-RISE-2014 (Flexi-pyrocat, No. 643322)). Attila Egedy’s research was supported by EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00015 Smart Specialization Strategy (S3) –Comprehensive Institutional Development Program at the University of Pannonia to Promote Sensible Individual Education and Career Choices project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, 8200, Hungary

    Attila Egedy, Lívia Gyurik, Tamás Varga & Norbert Miskolczi

  2. State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, Huazhong University of Science and Technolgy, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Jun Zou & Haiping Yang

Authors
  1. Attila Egedy
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  2. Lívia Gyurik
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  3. Tamás Varga
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  4. Jun Zou
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  5. Norbert Miskolczi
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  6. Haiping Yang
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Correspondence to Attila Egedy.

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Egedy, A., Gyurik, L., Varga, T. et al. Kinetic-compartmental modelling of potassium-containing cellulose feedstock gasification. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 12, 708–717 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-018-1767-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-018-1767-y

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