Abstract
The important role of black liquor in the pulp and paper industry has, been addressed and a review of conventional and potential alternative technologies has been made. Black liquor combustion properties and its combustion within a conventional recovery boiler, the principle of vortex combustion, and methods of computational fluid dynamics were summarized. In order to use the commercially available computational fluid dynamics package, PHOENICS, to simulate black liquor combustion in a vortex combustor, the black liquor combustion process was simplified and modelled and additional software programs were developed and attached to the commercial package. The developed module is capable of tracking trajectory paths of black liquor particles during combustion. A 250 kW vortex combustor was used for some experimental work. The combustor was first tested with natural gas and kerosene. The - combustion conditions were satisfied and their characteristics were presented. Atomization was the main technical problem in the combustion of black liquor. However, the environmental problem was also severe. The results were presented and discussed. Improvements of the system and further studied were suggested. Selection of a suitable turbulence model was made by comparing experimental data with the simulations from various turbulence models. Prandtl mixing length model gave closer predictions than k-? and k-1 model and therefore, it was used for the entire simulations. Simulations of natural gas combustion in a vortex combustor were made to establish skill and confidence in using the package, PHOENICS, to deal with combustion process. A series of black liquor combustion models were performed afterward using the particle tracking module developed. This led to the suggestion of a potential suitable geometry of a vortex combustor for black liquor incineration. The results were presented and discussed. Further simulation studies are also suggested.