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Slagging Behavior of Wood Ash under Entrained-Flow Gasification Conditions

2007; American Chemical Society; Volume: 21; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/ef700247t

1520-5029

B. Coda, Mariusz K. Cieplik, P.J. de Wild, Jacob H. A. Kiel,

Coal Combustion and Slurry Processing

The overall objective of the work described in this paper was to determine the behavior of wood ash under entrained-flow gasification conditions. Experimental work in atmospheric and pressurized entrained-flow gasification simulators, combined with thermodynamic equilibrium calculations, has shown that wood ash is not prone to form a molten slag at typical operating conditions of (pressurized, dry-feed, oxygen-blown) entrained-flow gasifiers, in spite of the presence of a relatively high amount of low-melting alkaline elements. This appears mostly due to the formation of mainly high-temperature-melting compounds (e.g., CaO) and only a small fraction of Ca silicates, which are characterized by a lower melting temperature. Phosphor and silicon may contribute to creating a higher melt amount, whereas low-melting alkali metal compounds are mostly partitioned into the vapor phase. Experiments, as well as modeling work performed for three types of wood, have shown consistent results. Addition of a fluxing agent is a promising option to improve the slagging behavior of wood-based systems by reducing the melting point of the slag. Moreover, thermodynamic calculations have shown that slag recycle may represent a feasible option in order to obtain sufficient slag coverage of the refractory wall despite the low ash content of woody fuels (typically 1 order of magnitude lower than in coal). In the present work, the determination of slag viscosity, a parameter critical for continuous operation of a slagging gasifier, has been addressed as well. The results of modeling work, showing the inapplicability of predictive formulas developed in the past for coal slags to wood-based slags, underline that further work is required to allow for a quantitative assessment of the slag viscosity as a function of slag composition and temperature.