Influence of oxidizer injection angle on the entrained flow gasification of torrefied wood powder

In the present work, 5 different axisymmetric burners with different directions of the oxidizer inlets were experimentally tested during oxygen blown gasification of torrefied wood powder. The burners were evaluated under two different O2/fuel ratios at a thermal power of 135 kWth, based on the heating value of torrefied wood powder. The evaluation was based on both conventional methods such as gas chromatography measurements and thermocouples and in-situ measurements using Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy. It was shown that changes in the near burner region influence the process efficiency significantly. Changing the injection angle of the oxidizer stream to form a converging oxidizer jet increased process efficiency by 20%. Besides increased process efficiency, it was shown that improvements in burner design also influence carbon conversion and hydrocarbon production. The burner with the best performance also produced less CH4 and achieved the highest carbon conversion. The effect of generating swirl via rotating the oxidizer jet axes was also investigated. Swirl broadened or removed the impingement area between the fuel and oxidizer jets, however resulting in differences in performance within the measurement uncertainty.