Mass transport parameters of aspen wood chip beds via stimulus-response tracer techniques

A stimulus-response tracer technique has been used to characterize packed beds of untreated, as well as acid prehydrolyzed, and enzymatically hydrolyzed aspen wood chips. Glucose was used as the tracer. Bulk liquid phase dispersion, interphase mass transfer, and intraparticle diffusion coefficients were determined for these materials as well as effective porosities and tortuosities. The untreated and prehydrolyzed aspen wood chips were found to have effective coid fractions of ca. 0.8, while the enzymatically hydrolyzed wood chips exhibited a void fraction of 0.37. Intraparticle diffusion was approximately twice as rapid in the prehydrolyzed and enzymatically hydrolyzed wood chips as in the untreated wood chips. Also, under the current experimental conditions, intraparticle diffusional transport resistance accounted for roughly half of the total tracer pulse dispersion. It is demonstrated that stimulus-response tracer techniques can be useful and convenient probes for beds of lignocellulosic, or other conversion and/or treatment.