Experiments and mathematical models of black liquor gasification – influence of minor gas components on temperature, gas composition, and fixed carbon conversion

In this work, predictions from a reacting Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of a gasification reactor are compared to experimentally obtained data from an industrial pressurized black liquor gasification plant. The data consists of gas samples taken from the hot part of the gasification reactor using a water cooled sampling probe. During the considered experimental campaign, the oxygen-to-black liquor equivalence ratio (λ) was varied in three increments, which resulted in a change in reactor temperature and gas composition. The presented numerical study consists of CFD and thermodynamic equilibrium calculations in the considered λ-range using boundary conditions obtained from the experimental campaign. Specifically, the influence of methane concentration on the gas composition is evaluated using both CFD and thermodynamic equilibrium. The results show that the main gas components (H2, CO, CO2) can be predicted within a relative error of 5% using CFD if the modeled release of H2S and CH4 are specified a priori. In addition, the calculations also show that the methane concentration has large influence on the reactor outlet temperature and final carbon conversion.