Performance of fuel reactor in Chemical Looping Combustion system with various metal oxide particle size and operating temperature

Abstract

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) process is a promising technology for improving the thermal efficiency of a system with the potential of 100% carbon capture and no NOx formation. In the present research work, bubble hydrodynamics inside the fuel reactor of a CH4–fueled CLC system has been numerically investigated. The reaction kinetics has been incorporated into the reactive system of the fuel reactor by a user-defined function (UDF) during numerical analysis. The present study uses CuO as an oxygen carrier material and CH4 as a fuel in combustion processes. The bubble hydrodynamics in terms of development, growth, rise, and burst are visualized and analyzed the solid-gas molar fraction inside the fuel reactor. In the present work, authors have chosen different operating temperatures varying from 923 K to 1323 K. The fuel conversion rate has been observed to increase with the increased temperature. Different granular size of metal oxide particles varying from 100 µm to 400 µm has been considered to observe the effect of various grain size of metal oxide and it was observed that the fuel conversion rate is decreasing with increased granular size.