Experimental simulate on hydrogen production of different coals in underground coal gasification

Research on hydrogen production from coal gasification is mainly focused on the formation of CO and H₂ from coal and water vapor in high-temperature environments. However, in the process of underground coal gasification, the water gas shift reaction of low-temperature steam will absorb a lot of heat, which makes it difficult to maintain the combustion of coal seams in the process of underground coal gasification. In order to obtain high-quality hydrogen, a pure oxygen-steam gasification process is used to improve the gasification efficiency. And as the gasification surface continues to recede, the drying, pyrolysis, gasification and combustion reactions of underground coal seams gradually occur. Direct coal gasification can't truly reflect the process of underground coal gasification. In order to simulate the hydrogen production laws of different coal types in the underground gasification process realistically, a two-step gasification process (pyrolysis of coal followed by gasification of the char) was proposed to process coal to produce hydrogen-rich gas. First, the effects of temperature and coal rank on product distribution were studied in the pyrolysis process. Then, the coal char at the final pyrolysis temperature of 900 °C was gasified with pure oxygen-steam. The results showed that, the hydrogen production of the three coal chars increased with the increase of temperature during the pyrolysis process, the hydrogen release from Inner Mongolia lignite and Xinjiang long flame coal have the same trend, and the bimodality is obvious. The hydrogen release in the first stage mainly comes from the dehydrogenation of the fat side chain, and the hydrogen release in the second stage mainly comes from the polycondensation reaction in the later stage of pyrolysis, and the pyrolysis process of coal contributes 15.81%–43.33% of hydrogen, as the coal rank increases, the hydrogen production rate gradually decreases. In the gasification process, the release of hydrogen mainly comes from the water gas shift reaction, the hydrogen output is mainly affected by the quality and carbon content of coal char. With the increase of coal rank, the hydrogen output gradually increases, mainly due to the increasing of coal coke yield and carbon content, The gasification process of coal char contributes 56.67–84.19% of hydrogen, in contrast, coal char gasification provides more hydrogen. The total effective gas output of the three coal chars is 0.53–0.81 m³/kg, the hydrogen output is 0.3–0.43 m³/kg, and the percentage of hydrogen is 53.08–56.60%. This study shows that two-step gasification under the condition of pure oxygen-steam gasification agent is an efficient energy process for hydrogen production from underground coal gasification.     

Effect of the type of gasifying agent on gas composition in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor

It is commonly accepted that gasification of coal has a high potential for a more sustainable and clean way of coal utilization. In recent years, research and development in coal gasification areas are mainly focused on the synthetic raw gas production, raw gas cleaning and, utilization of synthesis gas for different areas such as electricity, liquid fuels and chemicals productions within the concept of poly-generation applications. The most important parameter in the design phase of the gasification process is the quality of the synthetic raw gas that depends on various parameters such as gasifier reactor itself, type of gasification agent and operational conditions. In this work, coal gasification has been investigated in a laboratory scale atmospheric pressure bubbling fluidized bed reactor, with a focus on the influence of the gasification agents on the gas composition in the synthesis raw gas. Several tests were performed at continuous coal feeding of several kg/h. Gas quality (contents in H₂, CO, CO₂, CH₄, O₂) was analyzed by using online gas analyzer through experiments. Coal was crushed to a size below 1 mm. It was found that the gas produced through experiments had a maximum energy content of 5.28 MJ/Nm³ at a bed temperature of approximately 800 °C, with the equivalence ratio at 0.23 based on air as a gasification agent for the coal feedstock. Furthermore, with the addition of steam, the yield of hydrogen increases in the synthesis gas with respect to the water–gas shift reaction. It was also found that the gas produced through experiments had a maximum energy content of 9.21 MJ/Nm³ at a bed temperature range of approximately 800–950 °C, with the equivalence ratio at 0.21 based on steam and oxygen mixtures as gasification agents for the coal feedstock. The influence of gasification agents, operational conditions of gasifier, etc. on the quality of synthetic raw gas, gas production efficiency of gasifier and coal conversion ratio are discussed in details.     

Coal-gasification kinetics derived from pyrolysis in a fluidized-bed reactor

Coal pyrolysis and gasification reactions were carried out in a fluidized-bed reactor (0.1 m i.d. by 1.6 m height) over a temperature range from 1023 to 1173 K at atmospheric pressure. The overall gasification kinetics for the steam–char and oxygen–char reactions were determined in a thermobalance reactor. The compositions of the product gases from the coal-gasification reactions are 30–40% H₂, 23–28% CO, 27–35% CO₂ and 6–9% CH₄ with heating values of 2000–3750 kJ m⁻³. The heating value increases with increasing temperature and steam/coal ratio but decreases with increasing air/coal ratio. Our kinetic data derived from the two-phase theory on coal gasification in a thermobalance reactor and coal pyrolysis in a fluidized bed may be used to predict the product-gas compositions.     

Assessment of low-rank coal and biomass co-pyrolysis system coupled with gasification

To utilize low-rank coal and biomass in a highly efficient and environmental-friendly manner, a co-pyrolysis system coupled with char gasification is investigated. This system has five main units, namely, the drying and mixing, pyrolysis, cooling and separation, combustion, and gasification units, which are simulated by ASPEN plus based on experimental data. Results show that 37% of the pyrolysis char is burned to supply heat for pyrolysis and drying processes based on cascade utilization of heat energy, whereas the rest is sent to a gasifier. The sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the impacts of steam and O₂ injection on gas composition, gasification temperature, carbon conversion efficiency, heating value of gas during gasification, and gas production efficiency. The fractions of H₂, CH₄, CO, and CO₂ demonstrate diverse variation tendencies with an increasing equivalence ratio and steam-to-char (S/C) ratio. However, carbon conversion efficiency reaches its peak of 99.91% when the equivalence ratio is approximately 4 regardless of S/C ratio. An equivalence ratio of 4 and S/C ratio of 0.15 are used as decent examples to calculate the mass balance and to simulate the overall system. Results show that 1000 kg/h coal and 500 kg/h biomass can produce 285.83 m³/h pyrolysis gas and 2580.78 m³/h gasification gas with low heating values of 8.20 and 9.746 MJ/m³, respectively.     

Gasification of torrefied oil palm biomass in a fixed-bed reactor: Effects of gasifying agents on product characteristics

Gasification represents an attractive pathway to generate fuel gas (i.e., syngas (H₂ and CO) and hydrocarbons) from oil palm biomass in Malaysia. Torrefaction is introduced here to enhance the oil palm biomass properties prior to gasification. In this work, the effect of torrefaction on the gasification of three oil palm biomass, i.e., empty fruit bunches (EFB), mesocarp fibres (MF), and palm kernel shells (PKS) are evaluated. Two gasifying agents were used, i.e., CO₂ and steam. The syngas lower heating values (LHV_syngas) for CO₂ gasification and steam gasification were in the range of 0.35–1.67 MJ m⁻³ and 1.61–2.22 MJ m⁻³, respectively. Compared with EFB and MF, PKS is more effective for fuel gas production as indicated by the more dominant emission of light hydrocarbons (CH₄, C₂H₄, and C₂H₆) in PKS case. Gasification efficiency was examined using carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) and cold gas efficiency (CGE). CCE ranges between 4% and 55.1% for CO₂ gasification while CGE varies between 4.8% and 46.2% and 27.6% and 62.9% for CO₂ gasification and steam gasification, respectively. Our results showed that higher concentration of gasifying agent promotes higher carbon conversion and that steam gasification provides higher thermal efficiency (CGE) compared to CO₂ gasification.     

Steam and supercritical water gasification of densified canola meal fuel pellets

In this research, canola meal was densified using bio-additives including alkali lignin, glycerol, and l-proline. The fuel pellet's formulation was optimized. The best fuel pellet demonstrated relaxed density and mechanical durability of 1015 kg/m³ and 99.0%, respectively. Synchrotron-based computer tomography technique indicated that lack of water in pellet formulation resulted in a twofold increase in pellet porosity. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that ignition temperature (240 °C) and burn-out temperature (640 °C) for fuel pellet were smaller than those for coal. Impacts of process parameters were evaluated on the quality of the gas product obtained from pellet's steam gasification and hydrothermal gasification. The gasification experiments showed production of untreated syngas with a suitable range of H₂/CO molar ratio (1.3–1.6) using steam gasification. Hydro-thermal gasification produced a larger molar ratio of H₂/CO (1.8–51.2) for the gas product. Modeling of pellet's steam gasification showed an excellent agreement with experimental results of steam gasification.     

Hydrogen production and CO2 fixation by flue-gas treatment using methane tri-reforming or coke/coal gasification combined with lime carbonation

The production of hydrogen and the fixation of CO₂ can be achieved by treatment of flue gases derived from fossil fuel fired power plants via catalytic methane tri-reforming or by coal gasification in the presence of CaO. A two-step process is designed to be carried out in two reactors: a) a catalytic gasifier or steam-reformer, operating exothermally at 900–1000 K, with inputs of the flue gas, a carbonaceous source, steam and air, as well as CaO from the calciner, and outputs of H₂, and of “spent” CaCO₃ to the calciner; b) a calciner, operating endothermally at 1100–1300 K, with inputs of spent CaCO₃ from the gasifier, make-up fresh CaCO₃, and outputs of CO₂, as well as of CaO, partly recycled to the gasifier and partly processed in a cement plant. Thermochemical equilibrium calculations along with mass/energy balances indicate that for flue-gas treatment by tri-reforming, CO₂ emission avoidance of up to ∼59% and fossil fuel savings of up to ∼75% may be attained when concentrated solar energy is supplied as high-temperature process heat for the calcination step, all relative to conventional H₂ production by coal gasification. If instead fossil fuel would be used to drive the calcination step, the CO₂ emission avoidance and the fuel savings would be only 20% and 67%, respectively. Estimated annual H₂ production from a coal-fired 500 MWe burner by the proposed flue-gas treatment using either CH₄-tri-reforming or coal gasification would amount to 0.7 × 10⁶ or 0.6 × 10⁶ metric tons H₂, respectively. Estimated fossil fuel consumption for H₂ production by tri-reforming or coke gasification would be 149 or 143 GJ fuel/ton H₂.     

Hydrogen production via biomass gasification,and modeling by supervised machine learning algorithms

Prediction of clean hydrogen production via biomass gasification by supervised machine learning algorithms was studied. Lab-scale gasification studies were performed in a steel fixed bed updraft gasifier having a cyclone separator. Pure oxygen, and dried air with varying flow rates (0.05–0.3 L/min) were applied to produce syngas (H₂, CH₄, CO). Gas compositions were monitored via on-line gas analyzer. Various regression models were created by using different Machine Learning (ML) algorithms which are Linear Regression (LR), K Nearest Neighbors (KNN) Regression, Support Vector Machine Regression (SVMR) and Decision Tree Regression (DTR) algorithms to predict the value of H₂ concentration based on the other parameters that are time, temperature, CO, CO₂, CH₄, O₂ and heating value. The highest hydrogen value in syngas was found around 35% vol. after gasification experiments with higher heating value (HHV) of approximately 3400 kcal/m³0.05 L/min and 0.015 L/min were the optimum flow rates for dried air and pure oxygen, respectively. In modeling section, it was observed that H₂ concentrations were being reflected effectively by the concentrations estimated through the proposed model structures, and by having r² values of 0.99 which were ascertained between actual and model results.     

Hydrogen-rich gas production from biomass air and oxygen/steam gasification in a downdraft gasifier

Biomass gasification is an important method to obtain renewable hydrogen. However, this technology still stagnates in a laboratory scale because of its high-energy consumption. In order to get maximum hydrogen yield and decrease energy consumption, this study applies a self-heated downdraft gasifier as the reactor and uses char as the catalyst to study the characteristics of hydrogen production from biomass gasification. Air and oxygen/steam are utilized as the gasifying agents. The experimental results indicate that compared to biomass air gasification, biomass oxygen/steam gasification improves hydrogen yield depending on the volume of downdraft gasifier, and also nearly doubles the heating value of fuel gas. The maximum lower heating value of fuel gas reaches 11.11 MJ/N m³ for biomass oxygen/steam gasification. Over the ranges of operating conditions examined, the maximum hydrogen yield reaches 45.16 g H₂/kg biomass. For biomass oxygen/steam gasification, the content of H₂ and CO reaches 63.27–72.56%, while the content of H₂ and CO gets to 52.19–63.31% for biomass air gasification. The ratio of H₂/CO for biomass oxygen/steam gasification reaches 0.70–0.90, which is lower than that of biomass air gasification, 1.06–1.27. The experimental and comparison results prove that biomass oxygen/steam gasification in a downdraft gasifier is an effective, relatively low energy consumption technology for hydrogen-rich gas production.     

Process optimization and robustness analysis of municipal solid waste gasification using air‐carbon dioxide mixtures as gasifying agent

In this work, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was coupled with an advanced statistical strategy combining design of experiments (DoE) and the Monte Carlo method to comparatively optimize and test the robustness of two municipal solid waste (MSW) gasification processes one using air‐carbon dioxide (CO₂) mixtures as a gasifying agent and the other using air alone. A 3^k full factorial design of 18 computer simulations was performed using as input factors for air‐CO₂ mixtures the equivalence ratio and CO₂‐to‐MSW ratio, while MSW feeding rate and air flow rate were used for air gasification. The selected responses were CO₂, H₂, CO, and C_nH_m generation, CH₄/H₂ and H₂/CO ratios, carbon conversion, and cold gas efficiency (CGE). Findings were that DoE allowed determining the best‐operating conditions to achieve optimal syngas quality. Monte Carlo identified the best‐operating conditions reaching a more stable high‐quality syngas. Air‐CO₂ mixture gasification showed enhanced responses with major improvements in CO₂ conversion and CGE, both up to a 13% increase. The optimal operating conditions that set the optimized responses showed to not always imply the most stable set of values to operate the system. Finally, this combined optimization process performance revealed to grant professionals the ability to make smarter decisions in an industrial environment.     

Downdraft gasifier structure and process improvement for high quality and quantity producer gas production

The current study reveals several efficient amenities that can affect the gasification process to improve syngas quality and yield. A comprehensive study was carried out using a 24 kW downdraft gasifier to evaluate the effect of uniform air distribution in the oxidation zone, additional throat on the reactor temperature distribution and the overall gasification process. The effect of fuel moisture, equivalence ratio, gasifying agent type and pre-treatment of the gasifying agent on producer gas yield and composition were also evaluated. The biomass feeding rate was 30–40 kg/h, and the maximum gas flow rate was 90 m³/h. When corn cobs and waste wood (carpenter waste) with moisture content from 5 to 30% were used as feed stock, with 70 °C air as the gasifying/oxidizing agent, the energy value of the producer/syngas obtained was 6.31 and 6.66 MJ/m³, respectively. The heating value was improved to 6.72 and 8.43 MJ/m³ when using 150 °C air-steam mixture as the gasifying agent, with the optimum equivalence ratio of 0.30. The methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide concentration (on volume basis) were 6.20, 19.32 and 21.00. The average amount of syngas produced from 1 kg of corn cobs and waste wood were 2.94 and 2.62 m³, while the average amount of tar produced was 2.2 and 1.8 g/Nm³ respectively. The investigation revealed that uniform air distribution in the oxidation zone, fuel moisture content, gasifying agent type and the pre-treatment of gasifying agent played a significant role in enhancing the quantity and quality of the producer gas.     

Hydrothermal gasification of microalgae over nickel catalysts for production of hydrogen-rich fuel gas: Effect of zeolite supports

A series of Ni catalysts with different zeolites were prepared by wet impregnation method and used to catalyze supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of microalgae for production of hydrogen-rich fuel gas under conditions of 430 °C, 60 min, ρ_H₂O = 0.162 g/cm³, 2 g/g Ni/zeolites. Compared with noncatalytic SCWG, the presence of Ni/zeolite could increase the hydrogen gasification efficiency and carbon gasification efficiency by promoting water–gas shift and steam reforming reactions which are mainly affected by the amount of strong acid sites and Ni, respectively. The highest carbon gasification efficiency (CGE) and hydrogen gasification efficiency (HGE) of 23.61% and 23.55% were achieved with Ni/HY (Na₂O, 0.8%). The gaseous produced mainly consisted of H₂ and CO₂. The H₂ content in the gaseous products varied from 27.15 to 40.51% depending on the Ni/zeolites and increased with increasing the SiO₂/Al₂O₃ molar ratio of HZSM-5, which is 2.3–3.6 times higher than that of produced without catalyst. The H₂ yield varied between 2.57 and 3.61 mmol/g depending on the Ni/zeolites and increased from 2.19 to 5.61 mmol/g with increasing the SiO₂/Al₂O₃ molar ratio from 50:1 to 170:1, which is 3.6–7.8 times higher than that of produced without catalyst. Coke formation, surface area loss, and sintering of Ni could decrease the activity of the Ni/zeolites.     

Effect of supplementary firing options on cycle performance and CO2 emissions of an IGCC power generation system

Supplementary firing is adopted in combined‐cycle power plants to reheat low‐temperature gas turbine exhaust before entering into the heat recovery steam generator. In an effort to identify suitable supplementary firing options in an integrated gasification combined‐cycle (IGCC) power plant configuration, so as to use coal effectively, the performance is compared for three different supplementary firing options. The comparison identifies the better of the supplementary firing options based on higher efficiency and work output per unit mass of coal and lower CO₂ emissions. The three supplementary firing options with the corresponding fuel used for the supplementary firing are: (i) partial gasification with char, (ii) full gasification with coal and (iii) full gasification with syngas. The performance of the IGCC system with these three options is compared with an option of the IGCC system without supplementary firing. Each supplementary firing option also involves pre‐heating of the air entering the gas turbine combustion chamber in the gas cycle and reheating of the low‐pressure steam in the steam cycle. The effects on coal consumption and CO₂ emissions are analysed by varying the operating conditions such as pressure ratio, gas turbine inlet temperature, air pre‐heat and supplementary firing temperature. The results indicate that more work output is produced per unit mass of coal when there is no supplementary firing. Among the supplementary firing options, the full gasification with syngas option produces the highest work output per unit mass of coal, and the partial gasification with char option emits the lowest amount of CO₂ per unit mass of coal. Based on the analysis, the most advantageous option for low specific coal consumption and CO₂ emissions is the supplementary firing case having full gasification with syngas as the fuel. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adiabatic fixed-bed gasification of coal, dairy biomass, and feedlot biomass using an air–steam mixture as an oxidizing agent

Concentrated animal feeding operations, such as cattle feedlots and dairies, produce a large amount of manure, cattle biomass (CB), which can be included as renewable feedstock for locally based gasification for syngas (CO and H₂) production and subsequent use in power generation. Experimental results on effects of bed temperature and gas composition on the higher heating value (HHV) and energy recovery are presented for dairy biomass (DB) gasification using air and air–steam as oxidizers. Some experimental data are compared with adiabatic gasification modeling which includes atom balance conservation for assumed product species and chemical equilibrium analysis. Wyoming sub-bituminous coal (WYC) and Texas Lignite coal (TXL) are used as standard fuels for comparison purposes in modeling studies. Two main parameters are investigated in this study. One is the modified equivalence ratio (ER_M) defined as the ratio of stochiometric oxygen to total oxygen supplied in the oxidizing mixture of air and steam. The second is a measure of how much steam is in the oxidizer and is called the air steam ratio (ASTR), which is defined as the ratio of oxygen supplied in the air to the total oxygen supplied in the oxidizer. The results suggested that gasification of CB and coals under higher ER_M yield elevated concentrations of CO and CH₄, and low percentages of H₂ and CO₂, while higher ASTRs (less steam) produced mixtures poor in H₂, CO₂, and CH₄ and rich in CO with lower HHV. It was also found that FB and DB produced higher amounts of H₂ than WYC and TXL under the same ER_M and ASTR.     

Entrained flow gasification of straw- and wood-derived pyrolysis oil in a pressurized oxygen blown gasifier

Fast pyrolysis oil can be used as a feedstock for syngas production. This approach can have certain advantages over direct biomass gasification. Pilot scale tests were performed to investigate the route from biomass via fast pyrolysis and entrained flow gasification to syngas. Wheat straw and clean pine wood were used as feedstocks; both were converted into homogeneous pyrolysis oils with very similar properties using in-situ water removal. These pyrolysis oils were subsequently gasified in a pressurized, oxygen blown entrained flow gasifier using a thermal load of 0.4 MW. At a pressure of 0.4 MPa and a lambda value of 0.4, temperatures around 1250 °C were obtained. Syngas volume fractions of 46% CO, 30% H₂ and 23% CO₂ were obtained for both pyrolysis oils. 2% of CH₄ remained in the product gas, along with 0.1% of both C₂H₂ and C₂H₄. Minor quantities of H₂S (3 vs. 23) cm³ m⁻³, COS (22 vs. 94) cm³ m⁻³ and benzene (310 vs. 532) cm³ m⁻³ were measured for wood- and straw derived pyrolysis oils respectively. A continuous 2-day gasification run with wood derived pyrolysis oil demonstrated full steady state operation. The experimental results show that pyrolysis oils from different biomass feedstocks can be processed in the same gasifier, and issues with ash composition and melting behaviour of the feedstocks are avoided by applying fast pyrolysis pre-treatment.     

Evaluation of biomass gasification in a ternary diagram

The present paper addresses the development of an alternative approach to illustrate biomass gasification in a ternary diagram which is constructed using data from thermodynamic equilibrium modeling of air-blown atmospheric wood gasification. It allows the location of operation domains of slagging entrained-flow, fluidized-bed/dry-ash entrained-flow and fixed/moving-bed gasification systems depending on technical limitations mainly due to ash melting behavior. Performance parameters, e.g. cold gas efficiency or specific syngas production, and process parameters such as temperature and carbon conversion are displayed in the diagram depending on the three independent mass flows representing (1) the gasifying agent, (2) the dry biomass and (3) the moisture content of the biomass. The graphical approach indicates the existence of maxima for cold gas efficiency (84.9%), syngas yield (1.35 m³ (H₂ + CO STP)/kg (waf)) and conversion of carbon to CO (81.1%) under dry air-blown conditions. The fluidized-bed/dry-ash entrained-flow processes have the potential to reach these global maxima since they can operate in the identified temperature range from 700 to 950 °C. Although using air as a gasifying agent, the same temperature range posses a potential of H₂/CO ratios up to 2.0 at specific syngas productions of 1.15 m³ (H₂ + CO STP)/kg (waf). Fixed/moving-bed and fluidized-bed systems can approach a dry product gas LHV from 3.0 to 5.5 MJ/m³ (dry STP). The ternary diagram was also used to study the increase of gasifying agent oxygen fraction from 21 to 99 vol.%. While the dry gas LHV can be increased significantly, the maxima of cold gas efficiency (+6.5%) and syngas yield (+7.4%) are elevated only slightly.     

Batch analysis of H2-rich gas production by coal gasification using CaO as sorbent

In this study, a clean coal gasification technology was developed for production of H₂-rich gas from coal with CaO as sorbent. The conditions including [CaO]:[C] ratios, reaction temperature, and reaction time for the coal gasification process were optimized. The products were H₂, CH₄, CO, and CO₂. The highest H₂ percentage (82.66%) for bituminous coal was obtained at [CaO]:[C] = 2:1 and T = 1203 K. Meanwhile, the highest H₂ percentages for high-sulfur coal and high-sulfur coke were 77.41 and 81.57% at [CaO]:[C] = 1:4 and T = 1203 K, respectively. Moreover, the residual H₂S were 0.28 and 2.19%, correspondingly.     

Hydrogen production by catalytic gasification of coal in supercritical water with alkaline catalysts: Explore the way to complete gasification of coal

Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of coal is a promising technology for clean coal utilization. In this paper, hydrogen production by catalytic gasification of coal in supercritical water (SCW) was carried out in a micro batch reactor with various alkaline catalysts: Na₂CO₃, K₂CO₃, Ca(OH)₂, NaOH and KOH. H₂ yield in relation to the alkaline catalyst was in the following order: K₂CO₃ ≈ KOH ≈ NaOH > Na₂CO₃ > Ca(OH)₂. Then, hydrogen production by catalytic gasification of coal with K₂CO₃ was systematically investigated in supercritical water. The influences of the main operating parameters including feed concentration, catalyst loading and reaction temperature on the gasification characteristics of coal were investigated. The experimental results showed that carbon gasification efficiency (CE, mass of carbon in gaseous product/mass of carbon in coal × 100%) and H₂ yield increased with increasing catalyst loading, increasing temperature, and decreasing coal concentration. In particular, coal was completely gasified at 700 °C when the weight ratio of K₂CO₃ to coal was 1, and it was encouraging that raw coal was converted into white residual. At last, a reaction mechanism based on oxygen transfer and intermediate hybrid mechanism was proposed to understand coal gasification in supercritical water.     

Modeling and multi-objective optimization of variable air gasification performance parameters using Syzygium cumini biomass by integrating ASPEN Plus with Response surface methodology (RSM)

The present study developed a robust method for the modeling and optimization of variable air gasification parameters using the ASPEN Plus simulator and Response surface methodology (RSM). A comprehensive thermochemical equilibrium based model of downdraft gasifier was developed by minimizing Gibbs free energy. Model validation was done by comparing the simulated result with the experimental result of four different feedstocks from the literature and, a good agreement was attained. The Complete modeling of the air gasification process was segregated into four phases viz. biomass drying, biomass decomposition, biomass gasification, and producer gas filtration. Drying operation and yield distribution during pyrolysis were computed by incorporating FORTRAN sub-routine statement. Sensitivity analysis was performed to obtain syngas composition using Syzygium cumini biomass fuel and different gasification performances like gas yield (GY), cold gas efficiency (CGE), and higher heating value (HHV) using gasification temperature (600–900)⁰C and equivalence ratio (ER) (0.2–0.6). Furthermore, RSM has been employed for the multi-objective optimizations of the variable gasification parameter. Central composite design (CCD) is adopted. Two independent parameters viz. temperature and equivalence ratio have opted as decision parameters for estimating the optimum performance parameters i.e., hydrogen concentrations, CGE, and HHV. Regression models created from the ANOVA results are found to be highly accurate in predicting output response variables. The optimal values of H₂, CGE, and HHV are found to be 0.1 (mole frac), 25.23%, and 3.96 MJ/kg respectively corresponding to optimized temperature at 887.879 °C and equivalence ratio 0.32 using response optimizer. The composite desirability observed was 0.59.