Developing a combustion-driven reactor for waste conversion

João Vitor F. Duque, Flávio L.F. Bittencourt, Márcio F. Martins and Gérald Debenest

Energy, 2021, vol. 237, issue C

Abstract: One of the problems of the scalability to industrial applications of pyrolysis reactors is the high electric energy consumption. In this study, a novel device in which a self-sustaining combustion front drives the input energy for pyrolysis is proposed. A new methodology to define a representative longitudinal temperature profile based on the time-averaged method at each thermocouple position is introduced. The reactor was tested under operating conditions of air velocities, and bed compositions. The reliability of twenty-nine runs was verified through repeatability, empirical dimensionless correlations, and analysis of variance. The temperature average standard deviation ranged from 30 °C to 54 °C, depending on the bed composition. The dimensionless analysis revealed the power-law relationship between temperature and inputs. The analysis of variance explained the independence of the input parameters on defining the longitudinal temperature profile. A positive energy balance ranging from 1.6 to 5.8 kWh/kg of initial fuel mass, a consequence of a self-sustaining combustion process, was a characteristic of all experiments.

Keywords: Pyrolysis; Smoldering combustion; Charcoal; Longitudinal temperature profile; Temperature frequency distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:237:y:2021:i:c:s0360544221017370

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121489

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