Numerical modeling of counter-current condensation in a Black Liquor Gasification plant

• A multi-phase model for a condenser used for syngas cooling has been developed.
• Predictions of the model are compared with results from experimental measurement.
• The model results are in good agreement with limited experimental data.

Pressurized Entrained flow High Temperature Black Liquor Gasification is a novel technique to recover the inorganic chemicals and available energy in black liquor originating from kraft pulping. The gasifier has a direct quench that quickly cools the raw syngas when it leaves the hot reactor by spraying the gas with a water solution. As a result, the raw syngas becomes saturated with steam. Typically the gasifier operates at 30 bar which corresponds to a dew point of about 235 °C and a steam concentration in the saturated syngas that is about 3 times higher than the total concentration of the other species in the syngas. After the quench cooler the syngas is passed through a counter-current condenser where the raw syngas is cooled and most of the steam is condensed. The condenser consists of several vertical tubes where reflux condensation occurs inside the tubes due to water cooling of the tubes on the shell-side. A large part of the condensation takes place inside the tubes on the wall and results in a counterflow of water driven by gravity through the counter current condenser. In this study a computational fluid dynamics model is developed for the two-phase fluid flow on the tube-side of the condenser and for the single phase flow of the shell-side. The two-phase flow was treated using an Euler–Euler formulation with closure correlations for heat flux, condensation rate and pressure drop inside the tubes. The single-phase model for the shell side uses closure correlations for the heat flux and pressure drop. Predictions of the model are compared with results from experimental measurements in a condenser used in a 3 MW Black Liquor Gasification development plant. The results are in good agreement with the limited experimental data that has been collected in the experimental gasifier. However, more validation data is necessary before a definite conclusion can be drawn about the predictive capability of the code.