Published: 1992
Total Pages: 84
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The overall objective of this program is the development of predictive capability for the design, scale up, simulation, control and feedstock evaluation in advanced coal conversion devices. This technology is important to reduce the technical and economic risks inherent in utilizing coal, a feedstock whose variable and often unexpected behavior presents a significant challenge. This program will merge significant advances made at Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. (AFR) in measuring and quantitatively describing the mechanisms in coal conversion behavior, with technology being developed at Brigham Young University (BYU) in comprehensive computer codes for mechanistic modeling of entrained-bed gasification. Additional capabilities in predicting pollutant formation will be implemented and the technology will be expanded to fixed-bed reactors. The foundation to describe coal-specific conversion behavior is AFR's Functional Group (FG) and Devolatilization, Vaporization and Crosslinking (DVC) models, developed under previous and on-going METC sponsored programs. These models have demonstrated the capability to describe the time dependent evolution of individual gas species, and the amount and characteristics of tar and char. The combined FG-DVC model will be integrated with BYU's comprehensive two-dimensional reactor model, PCGC-2, which is currently the most widely used reactor simulation for combustion or gasification. The program includes: (i) validation of the submodels by comparison with laboratory data obtained in this program, (ii) extensive validation of the modified comprehensive code by comparison of predicted results with data from bench-scale and process scale investigations of gasification, mild gasification and combustion of coal or coal-derived products in heat engines, and (iii) development of well documented user friendly software applicable to a workstation'' environment.
