Quantification of the influence of particle diameter on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) formation in fluidized bed biomass pyrolysis

摘要

The thermochemical conversion of biomass via gasification and pyrolysis offer attractive routes to drop-in-ready fuels and renewably-derived chemicals from a variety of different biomass feedstocks. For both of these conversion pathways prediction of the growth of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) compounds is of particular importance since they can cause major challenges in downstream catalytic synthesis reactors and decrease the overall carbon conversion efficiency of the process. In this work, a multi-physics particle model of biomass devolatilization in a fluidized bed (FB) Reactor is developed which integrates external and internal heat transfer with devolatilization kinetics. This model is dependent on a number of parameters, including chemical kinetics and operational conditions such as reactor temperature and the physical description of the biomass including particle diameter.