Analysis of pyrolysis reactor for hardwood (Acacia) chips

Abstract This work investigates the designing aspect of a pyrolysis reactor. The reactor is operated within a temperature interval of 292 K–637 K. The pressure of the generated gas varies from 4 Pa to 26.8 Pa during the whole pyrolysis process. The assessment of reactor is based upon the gas dynamic of generated gas, and the effect of heat transfer on the energy generation. The dimension of reactor used for experimental work has a length of 0.4 m and the cross-sectional area of 9498.5 mm2. The pyrolysis test rig is programmed for the cubical thermal history. The empirical relationship of density of volatile gases density with the height of the reactor is ρ g , Z = ρ g ( 1 + 32.4 Z T ¯ ) 7.6 . The producer gas follows the polytropic process of PV0.89 = C. The gas yield of the reactor is estimated to be 36 (wt.%), while the char yield is 26.9% of the total residual biomass.