Updrafting

A survey of commercial thermal gasification in the United States shows that few gasifiers have been installed since 1984 (115). Most units in use are retrofitted to small boilers, dryers, and kilns. The majority of existing units operate at 0.14 to 1.0 t/h of wood wastes on updraft moving grates. The results of this survey are summarized in Table 36. Assuming all 35 of these units are operated continuously, extremely unlikely, the maximum amount of LHV gas that can be produced is about 0.003 to 0.006 EJ/yr (222—445 td /d). 

Thermochemical Liquefaction. Most of the research done since 1970 on the direct thermochemical Hquefaction of biomass has been concentrated on the use of various pyrolytic techniques for the production of Hquid fuels and fuel components (96,112,125,166,167). Some of the techniques investigated are entrained-flow pyrolysis, vacuum pyrolysis, rapid and flash pyrolysis, ultrafast pyrolysis in vortex reactors, fluid-bed pyrolysis, low temperature pyrolysis at long reaction times, and updraft fixed-bed pyrolysis. Other research has been done to develop low cost, upgrading methods to convert the complex mixtures formed on pyrolysis of biomass to high quaHty transportation fuels, and to study Hquefaction at high pressures via solvolysis, steam—water treatment, catalytic hydrotreatment, and noncatalytic and catalytic treatment in aqueous systems. 

Receptor hoods, also called canopy hoods, are designed to capture contaminants given off by heated processes. They take advantage of the thermal updraft caused by such processes by placing the hood in the path of the updraft, they receive the exhaust and capture the contaminants. 

Heated sources can cause strong updrafts that carry contaminants upward. Receptor hoods take advantage of this updraft, as shown in Fig. 10.31. The process shown to the left in Fig. 10.31 is at room temperature, while the process to the right in Fig. 10,31 is operating at elevated temperature. A canopy... 

The key variable in determining the applicability of a receptor hood to a particular source is the temperature of the heated source, and the resulting updraft. The temperature must be high enough to cause an appreciable updraft, or the hood will be ineffective. An estimate must be made of the total amount of buoyant airflow set in motion by the heated source the airflow through the hood must be greater than this buoyant airflow, in order to ensure complete contaminant capture. This principle is illustrated in Fig. 10.32, which shows the air spill that occurs when a hood s exhaust airflow is less than the thermal updraft airflow. 

FIGURE 10.3 2 Canopy hood with an airflow rate less than the thermal updraft airflow from a hot process. 

Flemeon is the first standard reference book that presents the equations for calculating thermal updrafts. These equations are repeated and expanded in other standard reference books, including Heinsohn, Goodfellow, and the ACGIFl Industrial Ventilation Manual.These equations are derived from the more accurate formulas for heat transfer (Nusselt number) at natural convection (where density differences, due to temperature differences, provide the body force required to move the fluid) and both the detailed and the simplified formulas can be found in handbooks on thermodynamics (e.g., Perry--, and ASHRAE -). 

The main purpose of the air curtain is to contain the vertical updrafts from charging and tapping emissions. The air curtain slot discharge should therefore be pointed downward (e.g., 15 to 25 degrees from the horizontal) in order to achieve an approximately horizontal resultant flow. 

During melting, the air curtain should efficiently direct fume towards the exhaust off-take without allowing recirculation within the enclosure. The air curtain design should therefore also consider the fume trajectory when a lower updraft velocity from melting is experienced. 

Thermal updraft The air movement that is created by a thermal plume. 

The air-mass thunderstorm is the least severe of all thunderstorms. In its simplest form, an air-mass thunderstorm grows as a single cell when solar radiation heats the surface air in an unstable atmosphere. Its life cycle lasts around 30 minutes. Towering cumulus clouds are formed as in-cloud updrafts push moisture upward. The tower may reach a height about five times the diameter of the cloud base in the growth phase. 

Upward airflow is also practiced. The cable void formed by the raised floor is used to supply air which enters the room via floor grilles. These can be moved to meet the pattern of heat distribution and are normally placed close to the computer cabinets, but consideration must be given to changing air conditions, intended to meet changing room load, entering the computer compartments. Care has to be taken to avoid the updraft lifting dust into the occupied space. 

Here is a simplified version of what goes on in a blast furnace. As the mixture of ore, limestone, and coke falls through the furance, it meets the updraft of oxygen. Carbon monoxide is formed,... 

Even though upward motion causes cooling of a parcel of air, the condensation of water vapor can maintain the temperature of a parcel of air above that of the surrounding air. When this happens, the parcel is buoyant and may accelerate further upwards. Indeed, this is an unstable situation which can result in violent updrafts at velocities of meters per second. Cumulus clouds are produced in this fashion, with other phenomena such as lightning, heavy precipitation and locally strong horizontal winds below the cloud (which provide the air needed to support the vertical motion). 

Only two possibilities exist for explaining the existence of cloud formation in the atmosphere. If there were no particles to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), water would condense into clouds at relative humidities (RH) of around 300%. That is, air can remain supersaturated below 300% with water vapor for long periods of fime. If this were to occur, condensation would occur on surface objects and the hydrologic cycle would be very different from what is observed. Thus, a second possibility must be the case particles are present in the air and act as CCN at much lower RH. These particles must be small enough to have small settling velocity, stay in the air for long periods of time and be lofted to the top of the troposphere by ordinary updrafts of cm/s velocity. Two further possibilities exist - the particles can either be water soluble or insoluble. In order to understand why it is likely that CCN are soluble, we examine the consequences of the effect of curvature on the saturation water pressure of water. 

The relative potency of toxic gases deployed by updraft application, 10... 

These have a stationary reaction zone typically supported by a grate and are usually fed from the top of the reactor. They can be designed in either downdraft or updraft configurations. 

With fixed-bed updraft gasifiers, the air or oxygen passes upward through a hot reactive zone near the bottom of the gasifier in a direction countercurrent to the flow of solid material. Exothermic reactions between air/oxygen and the... 

UOP FCC unit, 11 700-702 UOP/HYDRO MTO process, 18 568 UOP Olex olefin separation process, 17 724 Up-and-Down Method, 25 217 U/Pb decay schemes, 25 393-394 Updraft sintering, 26 565 Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) in biological waste treatment, 25 902 Upgraded slag (UGS), 25 12, 33 Upland Cotton, U.S., 8 13 U-Polymer, 20 189 Upper critical solution temperature (UCST), 20 320, 322 Upper explosive limit (UEL), 22 840 Upper flammability limit, 23 115 Upper flammable limit (UFL), 22 840 Upper Freeport (MVB) coal... 

Fixed bed gasifiers are generally used for small-scale operation with gas engines, having an electrical output of about 80-500 kWe. They divide into updraft and downdraft gasifiers. 

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