Comprehensive Design of a Fast Pyrolysis Reactor for Waste Utilization

Abstract

This study deals with the comprehensive design of a biomass fast pyrolysis bubbling fluidising bed (BFB) reactor. The solid lignocellulosic residue of sugarcane industries, bagasse, was considered as feedstock. A detailed kinetic model was developed in order to simulate the behaviour of the pyrolyser and the kinetic parameters of bagasse pyrolysis were determined by fitting the model to appropriate experimental data. Subsequently, energy balances were applied in order to calculate the necessary heat of pyrolysis. The model was, also, validated with respective experimental data and thereby it can be effectively used to simulate the performance of similar fast pyrolysis systems at various process conditions. Finally, the study concludes with the estimation of the capital and labour costs associated with the reactor and bio-oil storage units. In effect, this study exhaustively incorporates the basic mass, energy and economic calculations of the core unit of a fast pyrolysis plant. The latter will be fully designed in the near future as an expansion of the current model. Overall, the current research suggests and investigates the utilisation of a relatively abundant agricultural residue via fast pyrolysis for the production of bio-oil. The conditions that maximise the liquids yield is 525°C and residence time of 0.5s.