A Sectional Approach for the Entrained-Flow Gasification of Slurry Fuels

Energy densification is the overall objective of the ongoing bioliqproject. Bioslurry, which is obtained via the fast pyrolysis of low-grade biogenic resources, is converted to high-quality syngas in a high-pressure entrained-flow gasifier. The modeling of this three-phase system, involving high-pressure and high-temperature subprocesses, is very challenging. The detailed representation of the chemical subprocesses goes along with an increase of the computational cost. In this work, a novel approach is developed to achieve fast and accurate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the gasification of a slurry fuel in a laboratory-entrained flow gasifier under atmospheric pressure. The method investigated relies on a sectional approach to describe the char gasification. An Euler–Euler approach is used for the modeling of the slurry/gas phase system. Ethylene glycol is used to represent the liquid part of the slurry. Experimental data for validation are taken from various experiments (S. Fleck et al. Fuel2018, 217, 306–319 and S. Fleck et al. VDI-Berichte2015, 2267, 207–217) conducted at the Research Entrained flow GAsifier (REGA) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).