A Numerical Simulation and Experimental Study of Fluidization Characteristics of a Bubbling Fluidized Bed in Biomass Gasification

Abstract

Traditional fossil energy sources still dominate the world energy structure. And fully utilizing biomass is a viable approach for energy transition. A bubbling fluidized bed has better heat and mass transfer, while particle agglomeration limits the development of its industrial application. In this paper, two-phase flow characteristics of a bubbling fluidized bed are investigated by combining numerical simulations and fluidized bed gasification experiments. Numerical simulations found that the bed fluidization height reached twice the initial fluidization height at the 0.054 m initial fluidization height with uniform particle distribution. Fluidized bed gasification experiments found that syngas yield increased with increasing temperature. The carbon conversion efficiency reached 79.3% and the effective gas production was 0.64 m3/kg at 850 °C. In addition, when the water vapor concentration reached 15%, the carbon conversion efficiency and effective gas production reached the maximum values of 86.01% and 0.81 m3/kg, respectively.

Keywords

• fluidized bed
• numerical simulation
• biomass gasification
• gas–solid two-phase flow