One of the problems in biomass conversion using fixed bed reactor and online analysis is the clogging of outlets of reactor with thick polymeric material especially when you don't use aq. feeds. How do we tackle this problem?
All the outlet lines are heated till GC but the polymer product is too viscous and I doubt that I will loose my carbon in the outlet lines
What are you trying to do in that fixed bed reactor? Pyrolysis? Hydrogenation? Gasification? When fixed beds don't work there are a few options for better design like Fluidized Beds, Moving Beds or cyclic operations with periodic regeneration. Or maybe you just need to make your reactor outlet line with a larger diameter.
We provide decompositions (pyrolysis) of biomass on a small scale (100-200 g biomass) in the vertically positioned quartz reactor. The released volatile products leave the reactor through flexible joint to the collecting container for the liquid product. The flexible joint (quartz tubes with silicone hose - inner diameter 1 cm) is still heating coils to products did not captured and went into the collecting container. Dependent on the type of biomass, the decomposition temperature and heating rate.
Dear all, thank you for your comments and suggestions. Here I want to make one point clear that I am NOT working on direct conversion of biomass(gasficiation/pyrolysis) to chemicals. I am working on a molecule that is derived from biomass processing. I am upgrading that molecule to a chemical. During this process, I am making thick dense polymer kind of material along with my main product. I have not got my GCMS results of the polymer but I want to analyse whole reaction product via online gc analysis. But the clogging of outlet of reactor tubes is the problem. @ Rick Manner,_ increasing the diameter of the tubes will work for a certain space velocities (ofcourse depends on the kinetics).
Hot Steam/N2 injection and/or heated lines could also be an option - assuming that doesn't interfere with your analysis.
How about use of IR or NIR probes instead?
There are samplers available in the market (example: https://tools.thermofisher.com/content/sfs/brochures/D14200~.pdf).
In general aim not taking sample but analyzing in-line with glass-windows...
Use an inert gas powered inductor to draw the sample and dilute it with inert gas. Sample from diluted sample into your GC. The inductor can be placed across your reactor outlet line so that there is a zero length sampling line into the side port of the inductor.
Can you withdraw the polymer at a higher velocity, with a recycle line to the reactor, and just a very short off-take to the GC? Take the off-take from the top half of the line so that material cannot settle into the offtake when it is not drawing sample.
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