Lu, L. Q. L., C.; Rowan, S.; Hughes, B.; Gao, X.; Shahnam, M.; Rogers, W. A. "Experiment and computational fluid dynamics investigation of biochar elutriation in fluidized bed," Aiche Journal Vol. 68, No. 2, 2022, p. 11.
Abstract: In fluidized bed biomass fast pyrolysis, the biomass is converted to biochar and elutriated. The elutriation rate is a key parameter in reactor designs and operations. This research presents a video-based continuous measurement of biochar elutriation rate in a fluidized bed with sands and biomass as bed materials. The fluidized bed is simulated with the computational fluid dynamics-coarse-grained discrete element method (CFD-CGDEM) in MFiX. The fluidization behavior of nonspherical sands can be more accurately captured when a rolling friction model is used. The predicted elutriation rate is close to the experimental measurement when the particle size distributions are considered and the filtered drag with a shape correction is used. These results validated the accuracy of the MFiX-based CFD framework for the prediction of biochar elutriations in the fluidized bed biomass fast pyrolysis reactor.
Keywords: biochar; biomass pyrolysis; computational fluid dynamics; discrete; element modeling; elutriation; discrete element method; particle-shape; nonspherical particles; rolling; friction; cfd simulation; parcel size; drag models; entrainment; parameters; mixtures; Engineering