2011 Volume 90 Issue 12 Pages 1165-1170
The rheological characterisitcs of biomass slurry was determined from the pressure drop under high temperature and high pressure, using chicken manure. The dependence of the pressure drop on the flow rate was used to distinguish laminar and turbulent flow. The n-th order model was employed, and parameters in the model were determined to reproduce the experimental results. Surprisingly, the flow was well expressed with the Newtonian model where n=1, which contradicts with the previous study using the rotating viscometer. The difference in the sheer rate is expected to be the cause of this difference. The apparent viscosity reduced with temperature rise, and agrees with that of water above 300 °C for the slurry employed here. The methodology employed here is simple, and can be employed to determine the rheological characteristics of various slurries.
