Impact of peripheral fragmentation on the steam gasification of an isolated wood charcoal particle in a diffusion-controlled regime

This study focuses on the effect of peripheral fragmentation during gasification of an isolated wood charcoal particle in the regime of diffusional limitations. In fact, all the models available in the literature fail to reproduce the specific changes in biomass charcoals for which conversion increases quasi linearly versus time, whatever the particle size. We assumed this discrepancy is partly due to the fragmentation phenomenon, i.e. the detachment of fragments from the surface of the particle, which is not usually taken into account in models. The classical assumption in percolation models is a critical value of porosity beyond which fragmentation occurs. We compared our model results with experimental data. We demonstrated that in the diffusion-limited regime, the direct extrapolation of such a method to a continuum model is not satisfying. A new criterion of fragmentation based on a critical porosity and a critical porosity gradient is proposed which considerably improves modelling of gasification charcoal particles.