Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Reactor Severity on Biomass Pyrolysis Characteristics in Thermally Thick Regime (original) (raw)

Effect of reactor peak temperature on biomass pyrolysis in thermally thick regime with a constant heating rate of 30 K/s, reactor pressure of 1 atm and reactor peak temperature ranging from 500 to 1000 oC in a fixed-bed reactor has been numerically investigated. Wood cylinders ( = 400 ⁄ , ∅ 10 and length 20 ) were modeled as two-dimensional porous solids. Transport equations, solid mass conservation equations, intra-particle pressure generation equation and energy conservation equation were coupled and simultaneously solved to simulate the pyrolysis process. First order Euler Implicit Method (EIM) was used to solve the solid mass conservation equations. The transport, energy conservation and intra-particle pressure generation equations were discretized by Finite Volume Method (FVM). The generated set of linear equations was solved by Tri-Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA). Intra-particle fluid flow velocity was estimated by Darcy’s law. Results showed that increase in reactor temperat...