• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of a vacuum pyrolysis system, to analyze bio-oil characteristics, and to examine the applicability for farm-scale capacity. Methods: The biomass was pyrolyzed at 450, 480, and $490^{\circ}C$ on an electric heat plate in a vacuum reactor. The waste heat from the heat exchanger of the reactor was recycled to evaporate water from the bio-oil. The chemical composition of the bio-oil was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results: According to the analysis, the moisture content (MC) in the bio-oil was approximately 9%, the high heating value (HHV) was approximately 26 MJ/kg, and 29 compounds were identified. These 29 compounds consisted of six series of carbohydrates, 17 series of lignins, and six series of resins. Conclusions: Owing to low water content and the oxygen content, the HHV of the bio-oil produced from the vacuum reactor was higher by about 6 MJ/kg than that of the bio-oil produced from a fluidized bed reactor.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2023

Increasing of energy demand due to the rapid growth of global population and the development of world economy has inevitably resulted in the continuously increase of fossil fuel usage in the world. However, highly dependence on fossil fuels has necessarily brought about critical environmental issues and challenges such as severe air pollutions and rapid global warming. In order to settle these environmental and energy problems, clean energy generations in the conventional combustion processes have widely adapted in the world. In particular, novel thermochemical conversion processes such as pyrolysis and gasification have rapidly been applied for generating clean energy. Fluidized bed technologies having advantages such as various fuel use, easy continuous operation, high heat and material transfer, isothermal operation, and lower operation temperature are widely adopted and used because they are suitable for thermochemical energy conversion. The latest research trends and important findings in the thermo-chemical conversion process with fluidized bed technologies are summarized in this review. Also, the need for research such as layered materials and substances to reduce fine dust (biomass, natural resource waste, etc.) was suggested. Through this, it is intended to increase interest and understanding in fluidized bed technology and to present directions for solving future challenges in fluidized bed process technology development.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2020

Various solar hybrid energy conversion processes, which have both the advantages of renewable energy sources and fossil energy sources, have been developed in the world because stable and predictable energy supplies, such as electricity and natural gas, are necessary for modern societies. In particular, a solar hybrid energy conversion process based on a dual fluidized bed process concept has been expected as the promising solution for sustainable energy supply via thermochemical conversions, such as pyrolysis, combustion, gasification, and so on, because solar thermal energy could be captured and stored in fluidized bed materials. Therefore, the attrition and heat transfer characteristics of silicon carbide and alumina particles used for fluidized bed materials for the solar hybrid energy conversion process were studied in an ASTM D5757 reactor and a bubbling fluidized bed reactor with 0.14m diameter and 2m height. These characteristics of novel fluidized bed materials were compared with those of sand particles which have widely been used as a fluidized bed material in various commercial fluidized bed reactors. The attrition resistances of silicon carbide and alumina particles were higher than those of sand particles while the average values of heat transfer coefficient in the bubbling fluidized bed reactor were in the range of 125 ~ 152 W m^-2K^-1.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.200-210
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• 2015

The modeling for fast pyrolysis of biomass in fluidized bed reactor has been developed for accurate prediction of bio-oil and gas products and for yield improvement. The purpose of this study is to analyze and to compare the CFD(Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation results with the experimental data from the CFD simulation results with the experimental data from the reference(Mellin et al., 2014) for gas products generated during fast pyrolysis of biomass in fluidized bed reactor. CFD(ANSYS FLUENT v.15.0) was used for the simulation. Complex pyrolysis reaction scheme of biomass subcomponents was applied for the simulation of pyrolysis reaction. This pyrolysis reaction scheme was included reaction of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin in detail, gas products obtained from pyrolysis were mainly $CO_2$, CO, $CH_4$, $H_2$, $C_2H_4$. The deviation between the simulation results from this study and experimental data from the reference was calculated about 3.7%p, 4.6%p, 3.9%p for $CH_4$, $H_2$, $C_2H_4$ respectively, whereas 9.6%p and 6.7%p for $CO_2$ and CO which are relatively high. Through this study, it is possible to predict gas products accurately by using CFD simulation approach. Moreover, this modeling approach should be developed to predict fluidized bed reactor performance and other gas product yields.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.161-167
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• 2019

Several types of reactors have been used during the past decade to perform fast pyrolysis of biomass. Among the developed fast pyrolysis reactors, fluidized bed reactors have been widely used in the fast pyrolysis process. In recent years, experimental studies have been conducted on the characteristics of biomass fast pyrolysis in a spouted bed reactor. The fluidization characteristics of a spouted bed reactor are influenced by particle properties, fluid jet velocity, and the structure of the core and annulus. The geometry of the spouted bed reactor is the main factor determining the structure of the core and annulus. Accordingly, to optimize the design of a spouted bed reactor, it is necessary to study the pyrolysis characteristics of biomass. However, no detailed investigations have been made of the fast pyrolysis characteristics of biomass in accordance with the geometry of the spouted bed reactor. In this study, fast pyrolysis experiments using Jatropha curcas L. seed shell cake were conducted in a conical spouted bed reactor to study the effects of reaction temperature and reactor cone angle on the product yield and pyrolysis oil quality. The highest energy yield of pyrolysis oil obtained was 63.9% with a reaction temperature of $450^{\circ}C$ and reactor cone angle of $44^{\circ}$. The results showed that the reaction temperature and reactor cone angle affected the quality of the pyrolysis oil.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.68-74
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• 2010

In this study, fluidized-bed pyrolysis has been conducted in order to recover the bitumen contained in the oil sand. Canada Alberta oil sand contains 11.9% of bitumen and the bitumen-derived heavy oil produced in fluidizedbed tends to be upgraded relative to the bitumen. The continuous operation has been performed using $N_2$ as a fluidization gas at 1 atm and $500^{\circ}C$ in a reactor of 170 cm height. The results showed 87.76% of bitumen conversion, where liquid products are 74.45% and gas products are 13.31%. $H_2$, $O_2$, CO, $CO_2$, $CH_4$, and NO and $C_1{\sim}C_4$ hydrocarbons in the gas products were analyzed by on-line gas analyzer and gas chromatography, respectively. The pyrolysis oil was analyzed by using proximate analysis, heavy metal analysis, SIMDIS, asphaltenes, and heating value. By SIMDIS analysis, naphtha was 11.50%, middle distillation was 44.83% and heavy oil was 43.66%. It was obvious that the pyrolysis oil was upgraded compared with bitumens.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.16 no.1 s.49
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• pp.32-39
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• 2007

Coal pyrolysis processes vary with the origin and rank of coal. It is difficult to generalize the characteristics of coal pyrolysis reaction because the process consists of numerous reactions including pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion. To find out the optimum process condition it is necessary to determine the condition fur each coal from the smatter scale experiment. In this study pressurized ($2kg_{f}/cm^{2}$) fluidized bed, low temperature ($735{\sim}831^{\circ}C$) gasification using Kideco coal was performed. The reaction condition and product gas composition were determined from the variables including steam flow rate, coal feed rate and air flow rate. Optimum reaction condition was determined from the concentrations of $H_{2}$, and CO in the product gas. The ratio of air/coal was 4.45 and that of steam/coal was 0.21 respectively. The concentrations of CO and $H_{2}$ decreased with the increase of $CO_{2}$. It is important to control the feed rates of coal and steam because the reaction temperature rapidly increased when the combustion reaction dominates over the gasification reaction. The concentrations of CO and $H_{2}$ were 18%, 17% respectively from the continuous operating condition.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2023

Global interest in hydrogen energy is increasing as an eco-friendly future energy that can replace fossil fuels. Accordingly, a next-generation hydrogen production technology using microorganisms, nuclear power, etc. is being developed, while a lot of time and effort are still required to overcome the cost of hydrogen production based on fossil fuels. As a way to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in the hydrocarbon-based hydrogen production process, methane direct decomposition technology has recently attracted attention. In order to improve the economic feasibility of the process, the simultaneous production of value-added carbon materials with hydrogen can be one of the most essential aspects. For that purpose, various studies on catalysis related to the quality and yield of high-value carbon materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In terms of process technology, a number of the research and development of fluidized-bed reactors capable of continuous production and improved gas-solid contact efficiency has been attempted. Recently, methane direct decomposition technology using a fluidized bed has been developed to the extent that it can produce 270 kg/day of hydrogen and 1000 kg/day of carbon. Plus, with the development of catalyst regeneration, separation and recirculation technologies, the process efficiency can be further improved. This review paper investigates the recent development of catalysts and fluidized bed reactor for methane direct pyrolysis to identify the key challenges and opportunities.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.687-692
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• 2016

Biomass has been concerned as one of the alternative energy resources because it is renewable, abundant worldwide, eco-friendly, and carbon neutral. Quercus variabilis has been studied to understand pyrolysis reaction characteristics, and to evaluate the efficiency of bio-energy production from fast pyrolysis. Quercus variabilis were fast pyrolyzed in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor at various reaction conditions. The effects of pyrolysis temperature between $400^{\circ}C$ and $550^{\circ}C$ on product yields were investigated. The yield of bio-oil was changed between 36.98 wt% and 39.14 wt%, and those of gas yield was 33.40 and 36.96 wt% with increasing reaction temperature. The higher heating value (HHV) of bio-oil at $500^{\circ}C$ ($3.0{\times}U_{mf}$) was 20.18 MJ/kg. The gas compositions were similar for all reaction conditions such as CO, $CO_2$ and $CH_4$, and $CO_2$ selectivity was the highest (37.16~50.94 mol%). The bio-oil has high selectivities for furfural, phenol and their derivatives such as 1-hydroxy-2-propanone, 2-methoxy-phenol, 1,2-benzendiol, 2,6-dimethoxy-phenol.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.511-515
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• 2012

In this study, we used a commercial simulator to investigate the gasification characteristics of Roto coal in the partitioned fluidized-bed gasifier, which consists of 4 parts such as coal pyrolysis, char gasification, tar/oil gasification and char combustion. The heating medium was exchanged between the combustion part and the gasification part in order to supply the energy needed for pyrolysis and gasification. The correlation model from experimental data in relation to the reaction temperatures, the reaction gases and the coal feed rates was derived for the coal pyrolysis. The equilibrium model was used for the gasification and the combustion model for the char combustion. In order to compare the reaction behavior of the partitioned fluidized-bed gasifier, the single-bed gasifier was also simulated. The cold gas efficiency of both partitioned fluidized-bed gasifier and single-bed gasifier was almost the same. The $H_2$ and $CH_4$ contents of the syngas in the partitioned fluidized-bed gasifier slightly increased and the CO and $CO_2$ contents slightly decreased, compared with the singlebed gasifier. In order to verify the model, ten cases of the single-bed gasification experiment have been simulated. The contents of CO, $CO_2$, $CH_4$ in the syngas from the simulation corresponded with the experimental data while those of $H_2$ was slightly higher than experimental data, but the tendency of $H_2$ content in the syngas was similar to the experiments. In the coal conversion, the simulation results were higher than the experiments since equilibrium model was used for the gasification so that the residence time and contact time in the model is different from the experiments.