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The effect of oxygen penetration on apparent pulverized coal char combustion kinetics

2018 Spring Technical Meeting of the Western States Section of the Combustion Institute, WSSCI 2018

Shaddix, Christopher R.; Hecht, Ethan S.; Gonzalo-Tirado, Cristina

Apparent char kinetic rates are commonly used to predict pulverized coal char burning rates. These kinetic rates quantify the char burning rate based on the temperature of the particle and the oxygen concentration at the particle surface, thereby inherently neglecting the impact of variations in the penetration of oxygen into the char on the predicted burning rate. To investigate the impact of variable extents of penetration during Zone II burning conditions, experimental measurements were performed of char particle combustion temperature and burnout for a common U.S. subbituminous coal burning in an optical laminar entrained flow reactor with either helium or nitrogen diluents. The combination of much higher thermal conductivity and mass diffusivity in the helium environments resulted in substantially cooler char combustion temperatures than in equivalent N2 environments. Measured char burnout was similar in the two environments for a given bulk oxygen concentration but was approximately 60% higher in helium environments for a given char combustion temperature. Detailed particle simulations of the experimental conditions confirmed a 60% higher burning rate in the helium environments as a function of char temperature, whereas catalyst theory predicts that the burning rate in helium could be as high as 90% greater than in nitrogen, in the limit of large Thiele modulus (i.e. near the diffusion limit). For application combustion in CO2 environments (e.g. for oxy-fuel combustion), these results demonstrate that due to differences in oxygen diffusivity the apparent char oxidation rates will be lower, but by no more than 9% relative to burning rates measured in nitrogen environments.

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TYPE Conference Poster YEAR 2018
ScopusOSTI
Results 76–100 of 164
Results 76–100 of 164