Graphical Analysis of Gasification Processes

Gasification processes incorporate many reactions that are fairly complex to analyse making their design difficult. In this chapter it is shown that general gasification systems are limited by consideration of mass and energy balances only. Here, a ternary Carbon-Hydrogen-Oxygen diagram is developed to represent gasification processes. The diagram incorporates basic chemistry and thermodynamics to define a region in which gasification occurs. The techniques are further validated from data obtained from pilot or laboratory experiments available in literature. In this chapter we develop graphical representation for sawdust gasification and underground coal gasification (UCG), a clean coal technology. The methods described allow for further analysis without considerations to thermodynamic equilibrium, reactor kinetics, reactor design and operation. This analysis is thus an indispensable tool for flowsheet development using gasification and an excellent tool for practitioners to rapidly understand gasification processes.

Using Chemical Kinetics Models for Studying Dynamics of Economic Systems

The article illustrates the possibility of using models of chemical kinetics in the analysis and forecasting of real economic systems. It is shown that the model of competition of firms focused on the maximum possible growth has much in common with models describing the processes of competition of chemical components, in particular, the processes of production and destruction of inorganic substances. Examples of the use of a simplified model of nuclear reactor kinetics in the analysis and forecasting of innovative processes in the scientific and technical sphere, new mobile wireless communication technologies, as well as in solving the acute problem of waste (for example, plastic waste) are considered.

Reactor Kinetics

In static and kinetic experimental analyses, the reactivity effect of introducing a neutron guide has been examined with various materials and adjustments of the beam window. With the objective of improving the KUCA core characteristics, the implementation of the neutron guide is predicted to increase the fast neutrons in directing the fuel region. With regard to the kinetic characteristics, the subcriticality and the prompt neutron decay constant are monitored for several core configurations and detector positions. The KUCA core is equipped to make locally a hard spectrum core region with the combined use of 235U fuel, a polyethylene moderator, and a Pb–Bi reflector for criticality. In this study, the first attempt is made to examine experimentally the characteristics of kinetics parameters in ADS comprised of 235U-fueled and Pb–Bi-zoned core, and spallation neutrons generated by an injection of 100 MeV protons onto the solid Pb–Bi target. Online monitoring of reactivity has been deduced in real time by the inverse kinetic method on the basis of the one-point kinetic equation with measured neutron signals in the core. Here, measurements by the one-point kinetic equation are validated through the subcriticality evaluation with the PNS histogram and the methodology by the inhour equation.