Volume 1: Energy Innovations: Accelerated Deployment, New Concepts, and Emerging Technologies

Effective Start-Up and Shutdown Strategies for Continuously Operated Biomass Torrefaction Reactor Kevin S. Kung, Sonal K. Thengane, Ahmed F. Ghoniem

Abstract

In this study, we analyze experimental time series temperature data and infer the transient behaviors of the test reactor, as well as how it changes with reactor scaling. We show that the thermal mass of the reactor has a significant part to play in the reactor’s temporal response to changes, and demonstrate that in our design, it is possible to achieve a reasonable temporal response time at scale. Based on our analysis, we devise a series of start-up and cooling operation strategies that seek to optimize the time and feedstock consumption requirements. The insights learned in this study provide a basis for a more comprehensive study of the reactor transitional operations that can be encapsulated into an automated control system to minimize human intervention.

Keywords start-up, shutdown, torrefaction reactor, transition, biomass