Gasification of a heavy fuel oil in an entrained flow gasifier

In this paper, air gasification of Tehran’s refinery Mazut is investigated. First, Mazut gasification is modeled by the equilibrium method and then, the thermal operating of an entrained flow gasifier is studied experimentally. An entrained flow gasifier is designed and manufactured for 7 kg/h flow rate of heavy fuel oil. The physical/chemical properties of this heavy fuel oil are determined via standard laboratory experiments. In Aspen plus, a parametric study is conducted by the equilibrium model in order to investigate the effects of equivalence ratio on syngas composition, gasification temperature, and higher heating value for the steady-state condition. Temperature distribution along the gasifier and the solid carbon consumption are effective parameters on syngas composition and gasification performance. In an experiment, the gasification temperature is measured at different locations of a gasifier. The modeling results show that the values of H2, CO, and HHV have a maximum which is accompanied with complete consumption of solid carbon at equivalence ratio 0.39. By increasing equivalence ratio, gasification temperature increases which are supported by experimental results. The comparison of modeling and experimental result shows that difference between model and experimental temperature increases by increasing equivalence ratio. Also, after a short distance from the injector, the temperature is decreased along the gasifier with a constant rate. Finally, in order to provide the optimum gasification operation, the proportion between an appropriate gasifier length and operating equivalence ratio is presented based on one of the gasification reaction.