Temperature of Wood Char Particles Burning in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

Abstract

In the present work it was studied the fluidized bed combustion of char particles made with wood of Mozambican origin to find out the evolution of the particles temperature during the combustion process. Samples of wood species Afzelia quanzensis and Pterocarpus angolensis were carbonized at 850 ºC in a nitrogen flow. Afterwards some of these char particles with sizes in the 9 to 13 mm range were burned in a bubbling fluidized bed, while at the same time their interior temperatures were measured. From the experiments, it was found that for these chars fragmentation was absent and that the measured temperatures with a thermocouple inserted into the particles was similar to the values that were obtained by means of an energy balance carried out at the surface of the particle.