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Article history: Biomass is widely perceived as a potential renewable energy source. Thermo-chemical conversion tech-
Available online 7 November 2012 nologies including gasification, co-firing, and pyrolysis are of primary interest due to their higher conver-
sion efficiency and throughput when compared with the low temperature digestion and fermentation for
Keywords: lignocellulose and wood-based feedstock. In this paper, a small scale, air blown, downdraft gasification
Gasification system is operated using wood to investigate its conversion efficiency. Wood chips of 0.5 cm thickness,
Downdraft gasifier 1–2 cm width, and 2–2.5 cm length constitute the feedstock to the downdraft gasifier that is assembled
CFD
and instrumented at Masdar Institute’s Waste-to-Energy laboratory. The experimental investigation of
Wood pellets
the temperature field inside the gasifier is followed by high fidelity numerical simulation using CFD to
model the Lagrangian particle coupled evolution. The numerical simulation is conducted on a high reso-
lution mesh accounting for the solid and gaseous phases, k–e turbulence, and reacting CFD model. The
temperature distribution and the evolution of species are computed and compared with the experimental
results and with the ideal equilibrium, zero dimensional case.
Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Nomenclature
Several scientists approached downdraft gasification technol- the thermocouple on one hand and the relatively colder voids on
ogy using wood as a feedstock and studied the various parameters another. More importantly is the phenomenon of bridging that Zai-
that affect the producer gas quality including moisture content of nal et al. observed. This phenomenon occurs when relatively large
wood chips, oxidizer (air) flow rate, chip size, location of air inlet shredded chips create a bridge that obstructs the continuous flow
nozzle and reduction zone length (and thereby particle residence of the wood pellets and thus causes high localized temperatures
time) [4]. Hsi et al. [3] experimentally studied the effect of airflow inside the gasifier. Their work showed that bridging was reduced
rate, air preheating temperature, and moisture content of wood by using a 60o angled-throat which is higher than the repose angle
pellets on the producer gas composition and its heating value using of wood chips (45o) at ambient temperatures. This angle provides
an air-blown fixed-bed stratified downdraft reactor. The conver- smooth gravitational flow of wood through the combustion zone
sion rate of wooden pellets increased with increasing cold airflow, and facilitates the cracking of tar without bridging.
while the heating value of the producer gas reached a maxima at Kumar et al. [5] studied the effect of fuel particle shape and size
15 Nm3/h then decreased as a result of dilution by cold air. Pre- on devolatilization time using Casuarina wood in a fluidized bed
heating the air to 573 K did not affect significantly the heating va- combustor. Various shapes like disc, cylinder, rod, sphere, and
lue of producer gas. Whereas, the moisture content of wood pellets cube, with 5–30 equivalent sphere diameter and aspect ratio 0.2–
was found to significantly lower the conversion rate of the pellets 10 were tested. The fluidized bed reactor (130 mm diameter) used
and the heating value of the producer gas. The optimum mean a 550 lm sand grains for the bed material and its operating tem-
higher hating value (HHV) with a moisture content of 18% and cold perature was 650–850 °C. It was found that the devolatilization
air was found to be 5.2 MJ/Nm3. A one dimensional model pre- time increases with increasing feedstock particle size and density,
dicted the axial temperature profile and species distribution was
in agreement with experimental findings.
Zainal et al. [4] studied the effect of equivalence ratio in down-
draft gasifiers on conversion of furniture wood and wood chips.
They found that the H2 production increased linearly with the
equivalence ratio (in terms of gasification), whereas CO, CH4, and
the calorific value of producer gas reached a maxima and then de-
clined as the equivalence ratio further increased due to the short-
age of air as expected. Zainal et al. also explained the temperature
fluctuations in the combustion zone by referring to the effect of the
interrupted contact between the ignited, glowing wood pellets and
1.2 Lignite
Wood
1.0 Coal Lignite
0.8 Cellulose
0.6 Incr
eas
0.4 eH
eat
ing
valu
0.2 Anthracite e
0.0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Atomic O/C Ratio
Fig. 1. Van Kreveln diagram illustrating the relevant composition and heating value
of wood compared to other fuels. Fig. 2. Schematic of the downdraft gasifier.
I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792 785
sphere had the longest time for a given volume, the disc and rod of the reactor was made using 4 kg batches of charcoal consisting
had the shortest time, while cylindrical shapes had the intermedi- of relatively large chunks of coal and then followed by the wood
ate time. In fact, it was shown that the diameter of the particle has chips of 0.5 cm thickness, 1–2 cm width, and 2–2.5 cm length as
a larger effect on the devolatilization time compared to its length sampled in Fig 3.
because the volume is proportional to the length and to the square The downdraft gasifier is assembled and instrumented at Mas-
of the diameter. For rods, increasing the length of the particle be- dar Institute’s Waste-to-Energy laboratory. The temperature field
yond 50 mm for a constant diameter of 10 mm does not affect inside the gasifier was measured using eight K-type thermocouples
the devolatilization time because the volume to surface area ratio positioned inside the gasifier at different heights and at two radial
becomes a function of only diameter and hence it is constant for a locations. Seven thermocouples were placed at varying heights at
value of 10 mm diameter. Similarly, for discs, at larger diameters the center of the gasifier, and three thermocouples were placed
the volume becomes only a function of length which is constant at varying heights at 2.5 in offsetting from the center. The configu-
and hence the devolatilization time is constant as well. The impor- ration of the thermocouples is shown in Fig. 4 which were bundled
tance of studying the devolatilization time of wood lies behind the into two sets and mounted and sealed by thermal mortar.
fact that wood contains up to 80% of its weight volatiles and this Data from the thermocouples was monitored and recorded at a
significantly contribute to the energy released, emissions and 0.1 Hz sampling rate using a CR3000 Micrologger. The gasifier was
NOx formation during combustion [5]. However, [5] highlighted ignited by a propane torch at the ignition port. The energy gener-
that the ratio of the volume to surface area makes the prediction ated from the partial coal combustion drives the endothermic reac-
of devolatilization time as a function of particle dimensions less tions of gasification. Vacuum pressure in the gasifier of 10 mm H2O
trivial, because given the increase in particle volume does not nec- is achieved by an air compressor connected with the outflow gases.
essarily imply an increase in the devolatilization time (due to the Ignition time took around 2 min. A white, vapor-like effluent was
increase of the volatile content) if the surface area also increased observed at the outlet port indicating the onset gasification of coal.
and hence the heat transfer rate leading to a compensated effect. Gas sample was collected at the reactor exit leading to the cyclone
in a 1-Liter Tedlar bag for future gas chromatography analysis.
2. Experimental set up
3. Computational model
A schematic of the assembled downdraft gasification system is
The downdraft gasifier is modeled using the finite volume code
presented in Fig. 2 which is based on Gekgasifier Inc. design with a
[9] coupled with a conjugate heat transfer with the bulk metal sep-
total capacity of 20 kw [16]. The reactor is cylindrical with an inter-
arators and insulation. The computation is carried out on a two
nal diameter of 27 cm and a height of 48 cm. It consists of an auto-
dimensional axi-symmetric geometry of the gasifier. The segre-
matic feed hopper system, swirl burner, and rotary grate connected
gated implicit solver was used to solve the transport equations.
to syngas cyclone and packed bed filter for ash collection, in which
The following assumptions are made to simplify the physics of
the experiment is done in a semi-batch gasifier. The initial ignition
the problem without loss of accuracy:
Fig. 4. Thermocouple arrangement and location inside the gasifier used in the experiment.
786 I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792
Second order discretization scheme was implemented for all where Di,m is the diffusion coefficient. Sct is the turbulent Schmidt
calculated variables. The SIMPLE algorithm is used for velocity– number which is a ratio of the eddy viscosity lt to the eddy diffu-
pressure coupling. Turbulence is modeled by the k–e with standard sivity Dti,m. These transport equations incorporate a reaction source
wall function. term Ri in addition to the discrete phase interaction source Si. The Ri
term is governed by the stoichiometric reaction below:
4. Geometry and mesh construction
X
N kf ;r X
N
5. Governing equations where k here is the Arrhenius reaction constant, and (C)j is the mo-
lar concentration of jth specie raised to stoichiometric coefficients v
The continuous phase is governed by the following equation: and reaction order g, and Mi is the molecular weight of species i.
The discrete solid particle phase is solved in a Lagrangian frame
@ @ @ @/
ð/Þ þ ðui /Þ ¼ C/ þ S/ ð1Þ of reference. This phase consists of spherical particles of 100 lm in
@t @xi @xi @xi source
Timerate adv ectiv e diffusion diameter dispersed in the continuous phase. Their trajectory is pre-
dicted by integrating the force balance on the particle. This force
where q is the density and S/ is the source terms due to the dis-
balance equates the particle inertia with the forces acting on the
persed/discrete phase interaction. / is the dependent variable cor-
particle and can be described as:
responding to density (q), the density velocity multiple (q ui), and
the temperature (T), representing the conservation of mass,
d~
uP
momentum, and energy, respectively. It can also represent turbu- ¼ F D ð~
u ~ g ðqP qÞ=qP
uP Þ þ ~ ð6Þ
dt
lent scalars, i.e. turbulent kinetic energy (k) and turbulent dissipa-
tion rate (e). These two equations in steady state flow regime are where FD (u up) is the drag force per unit particle mass; u is the
written as: fluid phase velocity; up is the particle velocity; q is the fluid density,
@k @uj @ui @uj @ lt @k and qp is the density of the particle. The trajectory equations are
qui ¼ lt þ þ qe solved by stepwise integration over discrete time steps. Integration
@xi @xi @xj @xi @xi rk @xi
ð2Þ of Eq. (6) yields the velocity of the particle at each point along the
@e l e @uj @ui @uj @ lt @ e qe2
qui ¼ C 1e t þ þ C 2e trajectory, with the trajectory itself predicted by
@xi k @xi @xj @xi @xi re @xi k
The right hand terms represent the generation, the diffusion dx
¼ uP ð7Þ
and the destruction, respectively. In these equations, lt is the tur- dt
2
bulent or eddy viscosity lt ¼ fl C l q k =e where f and C along with Equations similar to (6) and (7) are solved for each coordinate
C1e, C1e, rj re are empirical constants. Similarly, the transportation direction to predict the trajectories of the discrete phase. The tra-
of species mi is written as: jectories of the discrete phase particles are computed as well as
@ @ @ @mi the heat and mass transfer to and from them. Solid particles are
ðqmi Þ þ ðqui mi Þ ¼ ðqDi;m þ lt =Sct Þ þ R i þ Si ð3Þ subjected to stepwise conversion laws. Inert heating law is applied
@t @xi @xi @xi
while the particle temperature is less than the vaporization tem-
Fig. 5. Domain topography (in inch) and mesh details where black represents insulations.
I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792 787
perature. Devolatilization law is applied to the combusting particle Moisture content is of primary importance because of its poten-
mass (mp) when the temperature of the particle reaches the vapor- tial effect on the temperature of the gasifier and hence the heating
ization temperature, Tvap. It is written as: value of syngases produced due to the significant latent heat of
h water evaporation [3]. Wood used in this simulation has a low den-
dmp i
¼ AeðE=RTÞ mp 1 fv0 m0p ð8Þ sity of 400 kg/m3, and a high heating value of 18.7 MJ/kg as deter-
dt mined by the Bomb calorimeter Par600 experiments. Several
where fv, and mop are the volatile fraction and initial mass, respec- complex events occur upon gasification of biomass and the reliabil-
tively. It remains in effect while the mass of the particle, mp, ex- ity of the CFD results is contingent upon accurately modeling these
ceeds the mass of the non-volatiles in the particle. The heat events. The thermal analysis of wood chips DSC results in mass loss
transfer to the particle during devolatilization process governs the evolution and heat balance shown in Fig. 6. Where drying, devola-
contributions from convection, radiation, and the heat consumed tilization, and combustion of wood particles is demonstrated as a
during devolatilization. It is written as: function of temperature. Nitrogen initially was used as a purge
gas whereas air was used as an oxidant at a flow rate of 100 ml/
dT p dmp
mp cp ¼ hAp ðT 1 T p Þ þ hfg þ ep Ap r T 4R T 4p ð9Þ min. Samples weighing several milligrams (5–10 mg) were heated
dt dt at a constant heating rate of 5 °C/min up to 180 °C in order to re-
where cp, hfg A, and r are specific heat, latent heat of evaporation, lease their moisture in a nitrogen-only atmosphere. Following
particle surface area and Stefan constant, respectively. After the vol- the release of the moisture, air is injected at 100 ml/min. Heating
atile component of the particle is completely evolved, a surface continued until the sample weight stabilizes ensuring completion
reaction begins, which consumes the combustible fraction of the of reaction at temperature of 600–900 °C.
particle until the combustible fraction is consumed. Heat, momen- The first event of the thermal analysis corresponds to the mois-
tum, and mass transfer between the solid fuel particles and the gas ture release which ceases at the onset of volatile release of about
will be included by alternately computing the discrete phase trajec- 200 °C. This is in agreement with previous reported values found
tories and the continuous phase equations. in [10,11]. This event corresponds to the drying zone in the down-
draft gasifier where heat generated from the exothermic combus-
tion and gasification reactions at the center and bottom of the
6. Feedstock conversion modeling gasifier is used to supply the necessary sensible and latent heat
for the release of moisture. The rate of evaporation is directly pro-
In principle, modeling wood gasification follows similar guide- portional to the particles surface area, the internal diffusivity and
lines generally used for the more conventional coal feedstock. moisture content of the particle, the temperature difference be-
Wood composition is described by its ultimate and proximate tween the particle and the gasifying agent, and the relative humid-
analysis. A typical composition which was experimentally ob- ity and velocity of gases inside the gasifier [7].
tained using the organic elemental analyzer FLASH 2000 and the The second event of the thermal analysis represents the devol-
combined thermogravimetric differential scanning calorimetry atilization process where the volatiles are released at an onset tem-
(DSC) analyzer SDT-Q600 is given in Table 1. perature as low as 200 °C and continues till approximately 350 °C.
This phenomenon was also observed by [10] and similar tempera-
ture intervals were recorded. The main wood material that is
Table 1
Wood composition in mass%. decomposed into various gases and tar during this event is the
hemicelluloses leaving behind a high yield of char [10,11]. The
Proximate analysis Ultimate analysis
air is consumed rapidly at the surface of the particles due to the
Fixed carbon 31.46 Carbon 49.59 fast kinetics of volatile reactions and hence heterogeneous/surface
Volatile 56.39 Hydrogen 6.28
reactions are minimal at this zone [7]. In this model, the volatile
Moisture 9.71 Oxygen 43.74
Ash 2.44 Nitrogen 0.39 content of char is assumed to decompose further into CO, H2,
Sulfur 0.00 H2O, and N2 by virtue of the fuels’ proximate, ultimate, and heating
value. The scheme developed by ANSYS [9] is followed to
Fig. 8. Temperature variation measured throughout the experiment by thermocouples placed through the gasifier center (above) and at 2.5’’ (6.35 cm) offset from the center
(below).
I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792 789
above the throat of the reactor. The last event in the TG thermal Kinetic parameters Aj, Ej (kJ/mol) Reference
analysis represents the gasification of the char into H2, CO, and AV2 = 1017.6 3 1
((m mol ) 0.75 s 1
) [15,6]
CH4 through reactions with hot gases and water vapor produced EV2 = 166.28
along the gasifiers’ upper zones [10]. The heat release curve in AV3 = 1e11 (m3 mol1 s1) [15,6]
Fig. 8 shows that maximum reactivity occurs between 300– EV3 = 42
AV4 = 0.0265 [6]
500 °C due to the reduction of hot gasses by char resulting in the EV4=65.8
production of ash. A similar conclusion was found in [10]. Inside
the downdraft gasifier, this event corresponds to the combustion
zone close to the gasifier air nozzles near its throat and the reduc-
tion zone at the bottom of the gasifier. Table 3
Solid-particle reactions kinetics.
The volatile release kinetics were used from [12] since large (R-V2-R-V4) chemical kinetics (pre-exponential factor and activa-
wood particles were studied. The size of the particle greatly affects tion energy) are summarized in Table 2.
the char conversion rate and gasification efficiency, higher conver-
sion is achieved at lower particle size [13]. The work of [12] re-
7.5. Particle surface reactions
ported devolatilization kinetics for a 1 cm size wood particles of
108 s1 for the pre-exponential factor, and 140 kJ/mol K for the
A multiple surface reactions model is used to model the wood
activation energy at the specified devolatilization temperature.
particles combustion and gasification reactions. The reactions con-
sidered involve char combustion, and char reduction of CO2, H2,
7.3. Volatiles decomposition
and H2O. Their kinetic data is summarized in Table 3:
8.1. Experimental results Fig. 10. Temperature profile along the gasifier center at t = 20 min.
8.2. CFD modeling results Fig. 11. CFD axial temperature field at 4 cm away from the axis of the gasifier
showing the corresponding location of the computed points along the gasifier
height.
The axial temperature field at 4 cm away from the gasifier ver-
tical axis is shown in Fig 11. The corresponding temperature points
used to construct this plot are shown along the gasifier height and
given in Fig 6, the height and location of the different zones within
are denoted by circles. By examining the typical wood TG diagram
the gasifier can be approximated.
Point A represents the end of the drying zone at about 185 °C
(as predicted by TG curve and [7]). Point B represents the end of
the devolatilization zone at about 825 °C where volatiles are re-
leased right above the air nozzle outlet. The TG curve shows a sig-
nificat heat release followed by a heat sink in the devolatilization
zone and the same trend is observed in Fig 6 with respect to tem-
perature. The heat release can be due to exothermic reactions of
very light voaltiles which were released at lower temperatures.
Whereas the heat sink can be related to the endothermic nature
of devolatilization reacton. Realistically, a complex rather than a
linear process occurs and simulataneous exothermnic and endo-
thermic reactions take place resulting in an overall net effect on
the reactor temperature. As expected, the heighest temperature
is located in front of the air nozzle where combustion takes place
at high concentrations of oxygen. This corresponds to the combus-
tion zone which extends from about 825–1000 °C at the thraot of
the gasifier. Finally, the hot gases are reduced by the remaining
Fig. 9. Inside look into the gasifier showing the consumption of wood after flame unreacted char in the reduction/gasification zone at approximately
extinction. 1000 °C.
I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792 791
Fig. 12. CFD particle temperature, char concentration, and volatile source as it travels down the gasifier. The species distribution of produced syngases CO and H2 are shown
in Fig. 13 below.
Table 5
Fig. 12 illustrates the physical and chemical evolution of a single Producer gas composition for CFD and ideal equilibrium case with the corresponding
CGE and average reactor temperature.
wood particle using its temperature (°C), char concentration (kg/
m3), and volatile source (kg/s) along the gasifier height. As indi- Gas component CFD Equilibrium (Ideal)
cated previously, the volatiles are readily released upon the parti- calculations mole%
Non-adiabatic Adiabatic
cles injection due to the high temperatures within the gasifier and
the relatively high volatile content of wood. Consequently, the con- Mole% Mass% Mole% Mass%
centration of char increases as the particle’s temperature drops CO 38.23 51.23 51.93 57.59
owing to the endothermic devolatilization process. At the pyrolysis H2 23.24 2.24 10.65 0.85
CO2 0.85 2.05 8.01E04 0.14
zone, the last remaining un-evolved volatiles are released as indi-
H2O 11.79 10.72 3.56E04 2.58–04
cated by the small jump in volatile source at about 0.2 m below the CH4 0.11 0 1.79E4 8.61E5
hopper feeding point as indicated in Fig. 12. Char is consumed as it N2 25.76 33.66 37.29 41.37
travels down the reactor and the temperature of the particle in- O2 0 0 0 0
creases. An abrupt temperature increase of the particle is observed CGE 70% 89%
Carbon conversion% 100 100
near the air nozzle located at the dashed black arrow. This jump in
Reactor average temperature (°C) 1140 1080
temperature signifies the hot combustion zone near the gasifier
792 I. Janajreh, M. Al Shrah / Energy Conversion and Management 65 (2013) 783–792
throat. Notice that char consumption slope changes fiercely at the the expected temperature evolution predicted by the experimental
intersection point with the particle temperature where the jump in thermogravimetry TG-DSQ plot for heat balance on a single wood
temperature starts due to the combustion reactions. particle.
The outlet gas composition calculated using CFD is summarized The average temperature computed by CFD was Higher com-
in Table 5 and compared with the ideal, adiabatic, equilibrium pared to that measured experimentally and comparable to the cal-
case. The equilibrium calculations are based on the same equiva- culated ideal one which corresponds to equilibrium conditions.
lence ratio for the feedstock of the CFD model. Three reactions The significant heat losses faced in small scale gasifiers due to their
namely: Water gas, boudouard, and methanation reactions consti- large surface to volume ratios was illustrated by comparing the
tute the governing equations in addition to the four elements bal- average temperature of the CFD, experimental and ideal cases.
ance (C, H, O, N), heat balance, and Dalton equation for the total The efficiency of biomass gasification is assessed using the cold
molar fraction of producer gas are also used. The producer gas tem- gas efficiency (CGE). The CFD computed CGE was found to be 19
perature, ratio per mole of feed, and the yield of seven gases (CO, points less of that calculated for the ideal case. Therefore, due to
H2, CH4, H2O, CO2, O2, and N2) are then calculated. the complexity of the flow inside the downdraft gasifier, equilib-
Cold gas efficiency (CGE) is calculated based on the LHV of the rium modeling does not capture the physics and chemistry inside
produced H2, CO, and CH4 compared to that of the feedstock [13]. the downdraft gasifier compared to other types of gasifiers espe-
The significantly higher CGE for the ideal case is directly related cially those characterized by their high temperatures such as the
to the higher yields of syngases. entrained flow gasifiers.
It is noticed that the non-adiabatic conditions of the CFD model To account for the particle size of the wood, devolatilization ki-
results in heat losses to the environment which are not captured in netic data from literature [12] for particles of 1 cm length were
the ideal case. Consequently, the maximum temperature computed used to offset the effect of the particle diameter (0.1 mm) modeled
by CFD is far less than that of the ideal case. The main reasons are using the discrete phase method (DPM) in ANSYS [9]. The corre-
neglecting the convective heat losses, and under-simplifying the sponding CFD and experimental temperature profiles suggest that
chemistry kinetics in the equilibrium model. this assumption is reasonable.
The low experimentally recorded temperatures highlight one of
the challenges of small scale gasification namely, heat losses. Due Acknowledgments
to the smaller reactor diameter, the surface to volume ratio is high
resulting in large heat losses for small scale gasifiers compared The support of Masdar Institute is highly acknowledged as well
with Mega Watt-scaled ones. The higher the heat losses, the lower as the help of the Waste-to-Energy laboratory team members. The
the temperature inside the gasifier, and hence the endothermic contribution of Mohamed Al Hamahmy, Arnar Valmundsson, and
reaction rates are lowered resulting in less yield of syngases and Rana Qudaih to the experimental work is also greatly
less gasification efficiency. acknowledged.
9. Conclusion References