Mass transfer effects in a gasification riser

Abstract

In the development of multiphase reacting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes, a number of simplifications were incorporated into the codes and models. One of these simplifications was the use of a simplistic mass transfer correlation for the faster reactions and omission of mass transfer effects completely on the moderate speed and slow speed reactions such as those in a fluidized bed gasifier. Another problem that has propagated is that the mass transfer correlation used in the codes is not universal and is being used far from its developed bubbling fluidized bed regime when applied to circulating fluidized bed (CFB) riser reactors. These problems are true for the major CFD codes. To alleviate this problem, a mechanistic based mass transfer coefficient algorithm has been developed based upon an earlier work by Breault et al. [1] , [2] , [3] . This fundamental approach uses the local hydrodynamics to predict a local, time varying mass transfer coefficient. The predicted mass transfer coefficients and the corresponding Sherwood numbers agree well with literature data and are typically about an order of magnitude lower than the correlation noted above. The incorporation of the new mass transfer model gives the expected behavior for all the gasification reactions evaluated in the paper. At the expected and typical design values for the solid flow rate in a CFB riser gasifier an ANOVA analysis has shown the predictions from the new code to be significantly different from the original code predictions. The new algorithm should be used such that the conversions are not over predicted. Additionally, its behaviors with changes in solid flow rate are consistent with the changes in the hydrodynamics.