Numerical Simulation of Gasification and Plasma Pyrolysis Process for Lignite Coal: A Comparative Study

Computational fluid dynamics is a special tool for modeling thermochemical processes for process parameter optimization. The present study is a comparative study of the gasification and plasma pyrolysis process of lignite coal. Three temperatures (1023, 1123, 1223 K) are selected for the gasification process and a similar is done for the plasma pyrolysis (1223, 1323, 1423 K). The obtained results are compared with the experiment literature available. The RMSE approach was used for checking the accuracy of the model. The accuracy was observed to be appreciable. The composition of the syngas is compared for all the cases. It was observed that the concentration of hydrogen and carbon monoxide is found to be rich in plasma pyrolysis with an average of 43.4% as compared to 13.5% for gasification. The plasma pyrolysis process offered better results compared to the gasification process as it offered a higher H2/CO ratio and (H2 + CO) factor. The CO/CO2 ratio also increased for the plasma pyrolysis process with an increase in temperature.