Statistical kinetics for pulverized coal combustion

Abstract

Coal is a heterogeneous substance whose structure and properties are highly variable on the length scale of the particle sizes used in suspension-fired combustion systems. For certain applications the statistical variations among particles can play an important role. In this paper, three specialized, single-particle techniques are applied to quantify the variations in combustion reactivity and char particle density within pulverized char particle populations. Reactivity variations are investigated through captive particle imaging experiments and entrained flow reactor experiments employing single-particle optical diagnostics. Single-particle density variations are determined directly by a novel technique based on an electrodynamic microbalance equipped with an automated video imaging and image processing system. From these data, a coal-general statistical kinetic model is developed and validated against a large set of single-particle temperature measurements for ten coals of various rank burning in three different combustion environments. The model incorporates a single empirical parameter describing the heterogeneity in reactivity and can adequately describe the entire database using a single coal-independent value of this parameter. The use of the model is demonstrated in a series of numerical simulations of complete burnout process for size-classified and polydisperse fuel samples. The simulations show that incorporating statistical kinetics has an important effect on burnout predictions in certain cases, the importance increasing with decreases in temperature, mean reactivity, and breadth of the particle size distribution.