Experimental study of the low-melting hydrocarbons regression rate in the air flow

Abstract

Gasification of organic and inorganic materials in a high-temperature gas flow is a promising technology for various industrial applications like chemical industry, waste processing, rocket and air-breathing propulsion, etc. However, the characteristics of the gasification process of low-melting hydrocarbon materials remain insufficiently studied so far. In this work, experiments on the gasification of cylindrical polypropylene (PP) samples by the airflow passing through multiple longitudinal channels 3 to 4 mm in diameter and 200 mm long are performed. The temperature, pressure, and velocity of the airflow in the experiments range from 300 to 1500 K, 0.35 to 1.38 MPa, and 17 to 100 m/s. As expected, oxygen available in the airflow interacts with PP and creates an additional heat source for PP gasification, thus, enhancing the gasification process. At an airflow temperature of 1480 K, the maximum mass flow rate of gasification products is shown to attain 17.7 g/s. The minimum ratio of the mass flow rates of the airflow and gasification products reaches the value of 2. In tests with airflow temperature of 300 K, the maximum mass flow rate of gasification products is 8.5 g/s. The minimum ratio of the mass flow rates of airflow and gasification products is 5 in these experiments.