Design and Testing of a High Pressure and High Temperature, Optically Accessible, Entrained Flow Coal Gasifier

Improved understanding of coal gasification chemical kinetics is needed to increase thermodynamic efficiency and to reduce undesirable CO₂ emissions. This work describes an optically-accessible entrained-flow coal gasifier designed and built to allow measurements of the major species at various stages of the chemical reactions. The 2-meter tall gasifier consists of five subsystems: the optical diagnostics, steam generator, coal feeder, external heaters, and gas sampling and analysis. A stoichiometric H₂-O₂ flame generates superheated steam, the gasifying agent, which reacts with pulverized coal fed from a variable feed-rate pressurized powder feeder. To sustain the endothermic coal gasification reaction, radiant heaters provide 15 kW of external heating. Diagnostics to determine the major species concentrations consist of tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) measurements within the reactor vessel assembly and analysis of dry product gases using a gas chromatograph.