Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"Energy is the major facilitator of the modern life. Every developed and developing economy requires access to advanced sources of energy to support its growth and prosperity. Declining worldwide crude oil reserves and increasing energy needs has focused attention on developing existing unconventional fossil fuels like oil shale and renewable resources such as biomass. Sustainable, renewable and reliable resources of domestically produced biomass comparing to wind and solar energy is a sensible motivation to establish a small-scale power plant using biomass as feed to supply electricity demand and heat for rural development. The work in Paper I focuses on the possibility of water pollution from spent oil shale which should be studied before any significant commercial production is attempted. In Paper II, the proposed Aspen models for oil shale pyrolysis is to identify the key process parameters for the reactor and optimize the rate of production of syncrude from oil shale. The work in Paper III focuses on 1. Design and operation of a vertical downdraft reactor, 2. Establishing an optimum operating methodology and parameters to maximize syngas production through process testing. Finally in Paper IV, a proposed Aspen model for biomass gasification simulates a real biomass gasification system discussed in Paper III"--Abstract, page iv.

Advisor(s)

Smith, Joseph D.

Committee Member(s)

Al-Dahhan, Muthanna H.
Ludlow, Douglas K.
Gelles, Gregory M.
Flori, Ralph E.
Homan, Kelly

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Spring 2016

Journal article titles appearing in thesis/dissertation

  • Commercialization issue of an ex-situ oil shale process: Leching studies of spent shale
  • Optimizing reactor parameters to achieve higher process yield in ex-situ oil shale process
  • Production of syngas from biomass using a moving bed downdraft reactor
  • Multizonal modeling of biomass gasification using Aspen simulation

Pagination

xiii, 132 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographic references.

Rights

© 2016 Hassan Golpour, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Chemical process control -- Simulation methods
Biomass gasification
Oil-shales

Thesis Number

T 10910

Electronic OCLC #

952593442

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