MODELING CHAR OXIDATION AS A FUNCTION OF PRESSURE ...
MODELING CHAR OXIDATION AS A FUNCTION OF PRESSURE ...
MODELING CHAR OXIDATION AS A FUNCTION OF PRESSURE ...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
conditions vary, with limits of zero and unity (Suuberg, 1988). Presently no theory can<br />
satisfactorily explain or predict how the reaction order of char oxidation would change<br />
with experimental conditions.<br />
The global n-th order rate equation has been criticized for lack of theoretical basis<br />
and inadequacy for predicting rates over wide ranges of experimental conditions,<br />
especially for high pressure char oxidation modeling (Monson et al., 1995; Monson, 1992;<br />
Essenhigh, 1996). Monson (1992) conducted about 100 char oxidation experiments using<br />
a high pressure drop tube reactor at 1, 5 10, and 15 atm total pressure with 5-21% oxygen<br />
in the bulk gas. The particle temperature ranged from 1400 to 2100 K. The pressure<br />
dependence of apparent reaction rate coefficients (A and E obs) was significant when<br />
assuming an apparent reaction order of 0.5. Variations of activation energies for a given<br />
coal as a function of pressure are thought to indicate the inadequacy of the n-th order rate<br />
equation in correlating these data.<br />
Langmuir-Hinshelwood Kinetics<br />
Fundamental studies show that the carbon-oxygen reaction involves<br />
chemisorption, oxygen surface diffusion, and desorption of surface oxygen complexes<br />
(Essenhigh, 1981; Essenhigh, 1991; Du et al., 1991). The n-th order rate equation fails to<br />
reflect the adsorption-desorption nature of this reaction. A more mechanistically<br />
meaningful representation of the intrinsic reaction rate is a Langmuir-Hinshelwood form<br />
(Laurendeau, 1978; Essenhigh, 1981), which in its simplest form becomes the Langmuir<br />
rate equation:<br />
r in ′ (C) = k1C 1 + KC<br />
13<br />
(2.17)