Developing a combustion-driven reactor for waste conversion

One of the problems of the scalability to industrial applications of pyrolysis reactors is the high electric energy consumption. In this study, a novel device in which a self-sustaining combustion front drives the input energy for pyrolysis is proposed. A new methodology to define a representative longitudinal temperature profile based on the time-averaged method at each thermocouple position is introduced. The reactor was tested under operating conditions of air velocities, and bed compositions. The reliability of twenty-nine runs was verified through repeatability, empirical dimensionless correlations, and analysis of variance. The temperature average standard deviation ranged from 30 degrees C to 54 degrees C, depending on the bed composition. The dimensionless analysis revealed the power-law relationship between temperature and inputs. The analysis of variance explained the independence of the input parameters on defining the longitudinal temperature profile. A positive energy balance ranging from 1.6 to 5.8 kWh/kg of initial fuel mass, a consequence of a self-sustaining combustion process, was a characteristic of all experiments. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

A novel device is proposed in this study to address the high electric energy consumption issue of pyrolysis reactors in industrial applications. Experimental results verified the reliability and positive energy balance characteristics of this device under different operating conditions.