Advanced Modeling of Biomass Pyrolysis and Combustion

Inspired by the successful use of Weibull distributions as the standard method to model failure rate of a material and the subtle analogy between reaction kinetics and reliability analysis (if thermal decomposition can be viewed as “failure” of molecules), this project is to create a novel model for description of biomass pyrolysis (including individual species evolution) based on generalized Weibull distributions. Biomass pyrolysis data in the literature as well as new experimental study of biomass pyrolysis will be used for the development and validation of the new pyrolysis model, which is expected to have a great potential in biomass pyrolysis process design. Then, a comprehensive CFD study of a biomass incinerator will be performed, in which the new pyrolysis model is to be integrated. The operation conditions and experimental results of the incinerator will also be collected for the CFD analysis and validation. Finally, a CFD-based parametric study will be done for the biomass incinerator to derive useful guidelines on its design and operation optimization.

Funding: China Scholarship Council.