Mathematical modeling of unsteady-state gasification of petroleum residue

Abstract

ABSTRACTGasification is a thermochemical process which converts organic fuels into a high caloric value syngas and other chemicals in the presence of a gasification agent. Tar generation represents the strongest barrier for the use of fixed-bed reactors for liquid fuel gasification, whereas sufficing is only possible with catalytic activities and expensive physical processing. In this work, a kinetic model of waste oil gasification was proposed which can be used a flexible model to provide a quantitative prediction of product yield of other fuels. Results were validated against the experimental measurements and showed a good agreement. In accordance with the modeling results, it was found that the greenhouse gas emission (GGE) of waste oil is higher than that of biomass materials, but the caloric value of the syngas generated is higher. The residence time was also recognized as an important design parameter to improve the syngas volume fraction.