Numerical simulation of hydrothermal liquefaction of algae in a lab-scale coil reactor

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a coil type hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) reactor with feedstock algae has been developed using reaction kinetics reported in the literature. The CFD is applied to understand effects thermal conductivity, heat capacity, molar mass, and viscosity both reactants products on HTL reactions terms residence time mass fractions, for this reactor. It found that have negligible However, viscosity, particularly dominant such as protein, was most significant effect when protein reduced from values base case. This highlights need better measurements future work.