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MODELING CHAR OXIDATION AS A FUNCTION OF PRESSURE ...

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8. Summary and Conclusions<br />

The objective of this project was to develop a model that can be used to explain<br />

and unify char oxidation rates over wide ranges of experimental conditions, including<br />

temperature, total pressure, oxygen mole fraction and particle size. A secondary<br />

objective of this work was to explore how the apparent reaction order of char oxidation<br />

changes with experimental conditions. The theoretical challenge in carbonaceous solid<br />

combustion, known as the rough sphere combustion phenomenon, was also explored.<br />

The accomplishments are summarized and conclusions are drawn below.<br />

Analytical Solutions of the Effectiveness Factors<br />

Bischoff (1965) proposed a so-called “general asymptotic solution” for predicting<br />

the effectiveness factor for an arbitrary rate form. Based on the work of Bischoff, a<br />

general modulus (Eq. 2.30) was obtained in this study for the Langmuir rate equation.<br />

This is the first time that the general modulus for the Langmuir rate equation has been<br />

applied to char oxidation.<br />

The asymptotic solutions of the effectiveness factors for both the Langmuir rate<br />

equation and the m-th order rate equation were examined by comparison with numerical<br />

solutions. It was found that the general asymptotic solutions lead to errors as high as<br />

17% in the intermediate range of the Thiele modulus. A correction function was<br />

developed to improve the accuracy of the general asymptotic solutions. The corrected<br />

121

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