Investigation of the process of thermocatalytic biomass processing in a fluidized bed reactor

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the process of thermocatalytic processing of biomass in a fluidized bed reactor in order to obtain useful heat. Samples of miscanthus, pine nut shells, and coffee waste were selected as the initial biomass. The biomass, crushed to a fraction less than 0.5 mm (coffee waste was not crushed, the particle size was initially 0.2-0.4 mm), was fed into a reactor with a fluidized bed of a catalyst at processing temperatures of 650, 700 and 750 °C, respectively. The essence of these experiments was to obtain useful heat by combustion the supplied biomass and using it, for example, to maintain an autothermal mode, as well as to study the ash residues obtained during combustion and analyze the gases emitted during combustion, followed by the creation of a process model in Aspen Plus software. The data obtained during the simulation are consistent with experimental data, and the proposed scheme can be used as one of the approaches to assessing the feasibility of implementing the process of catalytic combustion of biomass in a fluidized bed in an autothermal mode.