(620a) A Combined Experimental and Modelling Study of Biomass Fast Pyrolysis

Biomass fast pyrolysis is a promising route to thermochemically convert non-food sources of
biomass into a liquid product. The harsh reactor conditions and the presence of solid
particles make the detailed experimental measurements challenging. To this end,
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can help providing local conditions in the pyrolysis
reactor and designing optimal reactors. However, CFD simulations utilizing accurate
chemical kinetics are computationally expensive even for lab-scale reactors. To tackle this
challenge, a micro fluidized bed reactor (MFBR) is used to investigate biomass pyrolysis.
Both cold flow and hot flow experiments and simulations are conducted and compared. For
the cold flow, pressure drop, expanded bed height, and minimum fluidization velocity is
compared, whereas for the hot model bio-oil composition is compared. In the hot model,
the reactor temperature is maintained at 500 ͦC in the fluidizing region and biomass powder
(500 micron particle size) is injected through a side inlet with an in-house continuous feeder
at a rate of 10-30 mg/s.