The role of fuel mixing on char conversion in a dual fluidized bed gasifier

Operational conditions, such as the fluidization velocity or the solids cross-flow, have been found to affect both lateral and axial mixing of fuel particles in a fluidized bed (1, 2). The fuel axial mixing has been shown to influence the heat and mass transfer between the bed and the fuel particles, which in turn affect the char conversion rate (3). Furthermore, the fuel lateral mixing affects the residence time of the fuel inside the fluidized bed reactor. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of the operational conditions on the resulting char conversion in the gasification chamber of an indirect gasifier, while accounting for and assessing the role played by lateral and axial fuel mixing in the residence time and conversion kinetics, respectively. A 1-dimensional model for indirect gasification (4) was used in the present study. The model includes empirical inputs regarding the influence of the operational parameters on the fuel mixing in the lateral and axial directions. The axial mixing of fuel undergoing pyrolysis is described by results from previous large-scale experiments (2), while that of char particles is characterized in laboratory-scale experiments under cold conditions carried out in this work. Regarding the kinetics, previous findings on the char gasification rate resulting from fuel conversion at different axial locations in the bed (3) were used as empirical input data to the modeling. The experiments conducted in this work showed that the fluidization velocity significantly influences the axial mixing of char. Furthermore, results from the modeling showed that the fluidization velocity has a strong effect on the degree of char conversion in the gasification chamber: increasing the excess velocity from 0.05 m/s to 0.20 m/s resulted in a 10-fold decrease in the degree of char conversion. This is due to the decrease in the fuel residence time caused by the enhanced fuel lateral mixing. In comparison to this, the fuel axial mixing and its effect on the char conversion kinetics played a smaller role: disregarding the axial mixing of fuel resulted in char conversion degrees up to 1.2 times higher than those obtained when accounting for it. REFERENCES E. Sette, D. Pallarès and F. Johnsson. Influence of bulk solids cross-flow on lateral mixing of fuel in dual fluidized beds. Fuel Process. Technol., 140:245-251, 2015. E. Sette, T. Berdugo Vilches, D. Pallarès and F. Johnsson. Measuring fuel mixing under industrial fluidized bed conditions – a camera-probe based fuel tracking system. To be submitted, 2015. L. Lundberg, P.A. Tchoffor, D. Pallarès, R. Johansson, H. Thunman and K. Davidsson. Influence of Conversion Conditions on the Gasification Rate of Biomass Char in a Fluidised Bed. Submitted to Fuel Process. Technol., 2015. L. Lundberg, D. Pallarès, R. Johansson and H. Thunman. A 1-dimensional model of indirect biomass gasification in a dual fluidised bed system. 11th International Conference on Fluidized Bed Technology, CFB 2014. Beijing: Chemical Industry Press, 607-612, 2014

Evaluation of heat transfer models at various fluidization velocities for biomass pyrolysis conducted in a bubbling fluidized bed

Four different models for heat transfer to the particles immersed in a fluidized bed were evaluated and implemented into an existing single particle model. Pyrolysis experiments have been conducted using a fluidized bed installed on a balance at different temperatures and fluidization velocities using softwood pellets. Using a heat transfer model applicable for fluidized beds, the single particle model was able to predict the experimental results of mass loss obtained in this study as well as experimental data from literature with a reasonable accuracy. A good agreement between experimental and modeling results was found for different reactor temperatures and configurations as well as different biomass types, particle sizes ¿ in the typical range of pellets - and fluidization velocities when they were higher than U/Umf=1.5. However, significant deviations were found for fluidization velocities close to minimum fluidization. Heat transfer models which consider the influence of fluidization velocity show a better agreement in this case although differences are still present.This project has received funding from European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programmeunder grant agreement number 731101 (BRISK II)

Atmospheric Propagation at 100 and 300 GHz: Assessment of a Method to Identify Rainy Conditions during Radiosoundings

The influence of atmospheric gases and tropospheric phenomena becomes more relevant at frequencies within the THz band (100 GHz to 10 THz), severely affecting the propagation conditions. The use of radiosoundings in propagation studies is a well established measurement technique in order to collect information about the vertical structure of the atmosphere, from which gaseous and cloud attenuation can be estimated with the use of propagation models. However, some of these prediction models are not suitable to be used under rainy conditions. In the present study, a method to identify the presence of rainy conditions during radiosoundings is introduced, with the aim of filtering out these events from yearly statistics of predicted atmospheric attenuation. The detection procedure is based on the analysis of a set of parameters, some of them extracted from synoptical observations of weather (SYNOP reports) and other derived from radiosonde observations (RAOBs). The performance of the method has been evaluated under different climatic conditions, corresponding to three locations in Spain, where colocated rain gauge data were available. Rain events detected by the method have been compared with those precipitations identified by the rain gauge. The pertinence Received 26 June 2012, Accepted 31 July 2012, Scheduled 15 August 2012 * Corresponding author: Gustavo Adolfo Siles Soria ([email protected]). 258 Siles et al. of the method is discussed on the basis of an analysis of cumulative distributions of total attenuation at 100 and 300 GHz. This study demonstrates that the proposed method can be useful to identify events probably associated to rainy conditions. Hence, it can be considered as a suitable algorithm in order to filter out this kind of events from annual attenuation statistics

Effect of bed material density on the performance of steam gasification of biomass in bubbling fluidized beds

Steam gasification of lignocellulosic biomass in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor was analyzed by means of the composition of the producer gas, including tars, and temperature distribution in the reactor. The catalytic and sorbent effect of sepiolite particles was studied by comparison of the tars generated with those produced in a bed of olivine, widely used in biomass gasification applications. Sepiolite has a lower particle density, which influences the forces acting on fuel and char particles and leads to a more homogeneous distribution of them in the dense bed during the gasification process. Fluidized beds of sepiolite particles contribute to increase the heating value of the producer gas and its hydrogen content compared to gasification under the same operating conditions in olivine beds. Furthermore, the tar yield is around 25% lower when gasifying in sepiolite beds, reducing the requirement of secondary methods for tars removal. Long-term gasification tests were also conducted in a sepiolite bed to evaluate the mitigation of the sorbent/catalytic effect of sepiolite with time.This project has received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement number 731101 (BRISK II)

Resiliencia y estrés laboral en trabajadores administrativos dependientes en Lima.

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo principal determinar si existe relación entre la resiliencia y el estrés laboral en trabajadores administrativos dependientes en Lima Metropolitana, además de comparar la resiliencia y el estrés de los sujetos según su tiempo de servicio. Asimismo, se consideró el tiempo de servicio del trabajador en la organización 64 para ambas variables anteriormente mencionadas. La muestra estuvo conformada por 295 trabajadores, entre varones (119) y mujeres (176), cuyas edades oscilan en un rango de 20 a 63 años, con distintos niveles jerárquicos en sus organizaciones. Para la medición de la resiliencia se utilizó la Escala de Resiliencia de Wagnild y Young, mientras que para la medición del estrés laboral se utilizó la Escala de Estrés Laboral de OIT-OMS. Los resultados señalan que existe una correlación significativa y negativa entre la resiliencia y el estrés laboral. Por otro lado, no se encontraron diferencias significativas entre la resiliencia y el estrés laboral según el tiempo de servicio de los trabajadores

AMUSE-Virgo II. Down-sizing in black hole accretion

(Abridged) We complete the census of nuclear X-ray activity in 100 early type Virgo galaxies observed by the Chandra X-ray Telescope as part of the AMUSE-Virgo survey, down to a (3sigma) limiting luminosity of 3.7E+38 erg/s over 0.5-7 keV. The stellar mass distribution of the targeted sample, which is mostly composed of formally `inactive' galaxies, peaks below 1E+10 M_Sun, a regime where the very existence of nuclear super-massive black holes (SMBHs) is debated. Out of 100 objects, 32 show a nuclear X-ray source, including 6 hybrid nuclei which also host a massive nuclear cluster as visible from archival HST images. After carefully accounting for contamination from nuclear low-mass X-ray binaries based on the shape and normalization of their X-ray luminosity function, we conclude that between 24-34% of the galaxies in our sample host a X-ray active SMBH (at the 95% C.L.). This sets a firm lower limit to the black hole occupation fraction in nearby bulges within a cluster environment. At face value, the active fraction -down to our luminosity limit- is found to increase with host stellar mass. However, taking into account selection effects, we find that the average Eddington-scaled X-ray luminosity scales with black hole mass as M_BH^(-0.62^{+0.13}_{-0.12}), with an intrinsic scatter of 0.46^({+0.08}_{-0.06}) dex. This finding can be interpreted as observational evidence for `down-sizing' of black hole accretion in local early types, that is, low mass black holes shine relatively closer to their Eddington limit than higher mass objects. As a consequence, the fraction of active galaxies, defined as those above a fixed X-ray Eddington ratio, decreases with increasing black hole mass.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (no changes wrt v1

Wide-field dynamic astronomy in the near-infrared with Palomar Gattini-IR and DREAMS

There have been a dramatic increase in the number of optical and radio transient surveys due to astronomical transients such as gravitational waves and gamma ray bursts, however, there have been a limited number of wide-field infrared surveys due to narrow field-of-view and high cost of infrared cameras, we present two new wide-field near-infrared fully automated surveyors; Palomar Gattini-IR and the Dynamic REd All-sky Monitoring Survey (DREAMS). Palomar Gattini-IR, a 25 square degree J-band imager that begun science operations at Palomar Observatory, USA in October 2018; we report on survey strategy as well as telescope and observatory operations and will also providing initial science results. DREAMS is a 3.75 square degree wide-field imager that is planned for Siding Spring Observatory, Australia; we report on the current optical and mechanical design and plans to achieve on-sky results in 2020. DREAMS is on-track to be one of the first astronomical telescopes to use an Indium Galium Arsenide (InGaAs) detector and we report initial on-sky testing results for the selected detector package. DREAMS is also well placed to take advantage and provide near-infrared follow-up of the LSST

Bridging the gap between stellar-mass black holes and ultraluminous X-ray sources

The X-ray spectral and timing properties of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have many similarities with the very high state of stellar-mass black holes (power-law dominated, at accretion rates greater than the Eddington rate). On the other hand, their cool disk components, large characteristic inner-disk radii and low characteristic timescales have been interpreted as evidence of black hole masses ~ 1000 Msun (intermediate-mass black holes). Here we re-examine the physical interpretation of the cool disk model, in the context of accretion states of stellar-mass black holes. In particular, XTE J1550-564 can be considered the missing link between ULXs and stellar-mass black holes, because it exhibits a high-accretion-rate, low-disk-temperature state (ultraluminous branch). On the ultraluminous branch, the accretion rate is positively correlated with the disk truncation radius and the bolometric disk luminosity, while it is anti-correlated with the peak temperature and the frequency of quasi-periodic-oscillations. Two prototypical ULXs (NGC1313 X-1 and X-2) also seem to move along that branch. We use a phenomenological model to show how the different range of spectral and timing parameters found in the two classes of accreting black holes depends on both their masses and accretion rates. We suggest that ULXs are consistent with black hole masses ~ 50-100 Msun, moderately inefficiently accreting at ~20 times Eddington.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science. Based on work presented at the Fifth Stromlo Symposium, Australian National University, Dec 200

Power Amplifier Module with 734-mW Continuous Wave Output Power

Research findings were reported from an investigation of new gallium nitride (GaN) monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifiers (PAs) targeting the highest output power and the highest efficiency for class-A operation in W-band (75-110 GHz). W-band PAs are a major component of many frequency multiplied submillimeter-wave LO signal sources. For spectrometer arrays, substantial W-band power is required due to the passive lossy frequency multipliers-to generate higher frequency signals in nonlinear Schottky diode-based LO sources. By advancing PA technology, the LO system performance can be increased with possible cost reductions compared to current GaAs PAs. High-power, high-efficiency GaN PAs are cross-cutting and can enable more efficient local oscillator distribution systems for new astrophysics and planetary receivers and heterodyne array instruments. It can also allow for a new, electronically scannable solid-state array technology for future Earth science radar instruments and communications platforms