Chemical reactor network modeling in the context of solid fuel combustion under oxy-fuel atmospheres

Abstract

A multi-phase chemical reactor network (CRN) is developed and applied to investigate solid fuel combustion under oxy-fuel atmospheres in a laboratory-scale combustion chamber. The development of a novel solid-gas plug flow reactor (sPFR) allows the full coupling of solid and gas phase processes to increase the fidelity in CRN modeling. Together with the recently developed solid-gas perfectly stirred reactor (sPSR), the new sPFR is applied within a multi-phase reactor network to model the complex features of the investigated application. To design an initial reactor network, a hybrid experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-driven approach is being pursued, taking into account both global and local information on flow and temperature fields. Initially, an in-depth investigation of the physical processes is conducted, covering solid fuel conversion processes such as devolatilization and char conversion, along with the thermochemical characteristics of the flue gas. In particular, the prediction of carbon monoxide (CO) emissions is analyzed in detail by means of sensitivity analyses. Based on the findings of the sensitivity study, the network complexity of the initial reactor network is increased to enable an accurate prediction of the CO formation in comparison to the experiments. Finally, the formation of nitric oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and aromatic pollutants is discussed, highlighting the importance of detailed chemistry in solid fuel combustion at technically relevant scales.