Influence of bed material on biomass gasification in fluidized beds via a TFM-DEM hybrid model

Abstract

In the biomass gasification process, mixing and segregation behaviors of fuel particles and bed materials greatly influence the performance. In this work, the Two-Fluid Model-Discrete Element Method (TFM-DEM) hybrid model is employed to evaluate the impact of bed material on biomass gasification in a fluidized bed reactor, where fuel particles and bed material particles are described by the Lagrangian method and Eulerian method respectively. The biomass particle size distribution is taken into consideration. The kinetic theory of rough sphere (KTRS) is employed to consider the rotation impact of bed materials. Flow behaviors of binary mixture and gas composition distribution are analyzed. The results reveal that the bed materials with greater size can hinder the particle mixing behaviors and make the biomass particles concentrate on the bed surface so as to increase the non-uniformity of temperature distribution in the bed. A good fluidization with smaller bed material particles is beneficial to hydrogen production.