

We present a detailed kinetic model for bio-oil gasification, generated using Reaction Mechanism Generator (RMG), an open source software project that can build detailed kinetic models for hydrocarbon pyrolysis and combustion. Starting with a surrogate bio-oil consisting of ten known species, and reaction conditions (temperature, pressure, reaction time) from the literature, RMG predicts a kinetic model consisting of many thousands of elementary reactions between hundreds of intermediate species. Wherever possible, RMG uses databases of known values to find thermochemical and kinetic data, but usually they are unknown and it predicts parameters using group additivity methods and correlations.
We describe the challenges involved in using RMG to build a comprehensive model for surrogate fuels containing many large compounds, and how they can be overcome. Finally, we compare the results of the reaction modeling with experimental data on the composition of the syngas produced, and use the model to suggest optimal operating condition for bio-oil gasification.