Evaluation of global biomass devolatilization kinetics in a drop tube reactor with CFD aided experiments

A procedure coupling experimental characterization and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is developed for providing valuable global kinetic parameters to large applications of biomass fuels (fast pyrolysis, co-combustion and gasification). This is based on an advanced lab-scale apparatus (drop tube reactor), reproducing high heating rates and low residence times at different nominal temperatures (400–800 °C) for particle size of practical interest. Although the relative simplicity of the operation, a detailed and accurate evaluation of the particle residence time and effective thermal history is needed to elaborate suitable global devolatilization kinetics, which differ significantly from low heating rate kinetics (for instance in thermogravimetric balance) and also from those obtained assuming strong hypotheses (e.g. constant particle temperature in the reactor). The developed procedure gives kinetic parameters which are not the intrinsic devolatilization kinetics but global kinetics at high heating rates. These global kinetic parameters are useful to simulate practical systems (characterised by high heating rate) with comprehensive codes (CFD), since detailed particle kinetics require additional sub-models (e.g. of external and internal heat transfer) which may be time consuming and need many data, often known only with uncertainty. In this work CFD is used as both diagnostic and predictive tool; its potentials and drawbacks in aiding advanced experimentation on biomass/coal pyrolysis are discussed.