A Devolatilization Model of Woody Biomass Particle in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

Journal article, 2012

Devolatilization is an important mechanism in the gasification and pyrolysis of woody biomass, and has to be accordingly considered in designing a gasifier. In order to describe the devolatilization process of wood particle, there have been proposed a number of empirical correlations based on experimental data. However, the correlations are limited to apply for various reaction conditions due to the complex nature of wood devolatilization. In this study, a simple model was developed for predicting the devolatilization of a wood particle in a fluidized bed reactor. The model considered the drying, shrinkage and heat generation of intra-particle for a spherical biomass. The influence of various parameters such as size, initial moisture content, heat transfer coefficient, kinetic model and temperature, was investigated. The devolatilization time linearly increased with increasing initial moisture content and size of a wood particle, whereas decreases with reaction temperature. There is no significant change of results when the external heat transfer coefficient is over 300 W/m2K, and smaller particles are more sensitive to the outer heat transfer coefficient. Predicted results from the model show a similar tendency with the experimental data from literatures within a deviation of 10%.