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MODELING CHAR OXIDATION AS A FUNCTION OF PRESSURE ...

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Second Effectiveness Factor and ERE<br />

Essenhigh (1988) proposed a so-called “second effectiveness factor” to account<br />

for the internal combustion of char oxidation in conjunction with the Langmuir rate<br />

equation. This method has theoretical and practical difficulties (see Chapters 2 and 5).<br />

The effectiveness factor approach developed in this project can potentially overcome all<br />

these difficulties.<br />

Essenhigh (1988) also proposed a "Extended Resistance Equation" (ERE) to<br />

represent the char oxidation rates. The ERE takes into account boundary layer diffusion,<br />

adsorption, desorption and internal combustion (pore diffusion effects) while retaining a<br />

simple form. However, it was shown in Chapter 5 that the ERE is mathematically invalid<br />

except for some special cases (e.g., when the Langmuir kinetics reduces to first order, or<br />

when the film diffusion resistance can be neglected). The approach used in this project<br />

overcomes this difficulty with minimal computational efforts.<br />

Mechanisms<br />

Although the adsorption-desorption mechanism (Essenhigh, 1988) is commonly<br />

assumed when the Langmuir rate equation is used, many different mechanisms lead to<br />

expressions that can be simplified to the Langmuir rate equation. The approach of this<br />

project is general and independent of specific mechanisms. Therefore, k 1 and k 0 (two rate<br />

constants) are used in this project instead of k a (adsorption rate constant) and k d<br />

(desorption rate constant).<br />

It is commonly believed that the activation energy of adsorption is lower than that<br />

of desorption. Based on this belief and the adsorption-desorption interpretation of the<br />

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