Experimental and Numerical Investigations of a Rice Husk Pyrolysis Reactor

A rice husk pyrolysis reactor producing syngas and char was developed by GreenGenTech Energy Inc. (Ottawa, ON) and is currently being built and commercialized in China by a partner company called Ruizhantai. The reactor is fully functional and some sites have been running continuously for two years, although requiring skillful operation during start-up or when agglomeration of husk occurs. Aiming at optimized and more automatically controlled operations, GreenGenTech Energy Inc. wishes to perform temperature measurements to characterize the performance of the reactors (in terms of the quality of syngas and char output). In additional, preliminary numerical simulations will be performed to better understand the physics inside the reactor. This is the start of a long term collaboration. This collaboration will give GreenGenTech Energy Inc. a competitive advantage to optimize current technology of pyrolysis reactors as well as expand their usage towards a variety of biomass waste (for example, waste from wood mills, straw, etc.), which will result in revenue generation for the company, expansion, and job creation in Ontario.

Faculty Supervisor:

Edgar Matida

Student:

Michael Miller

Partner:

GreenGenTech Energy Inc.

Discipline:

Aerospace studies

Sector:

Alternative energy

University:

Carleton University