Hydrogen-rich gas from catalytic steam gasification of eucalyptus using nickel-loaded Thai brown coal char catalyst

Hydrogen gas production from eucalyptus by catalytic steam gasification was carried out in an atmospheric pressure of two-stage fixed bed. The gasifier was operated with the temperature range of 500–650 °C and steam partial pressure of 16, 30 and 45 kPa; nickel-loaded Thai brown coal char was used as a catalyst. The yields and compositions of the gasification products depend on the operating conditions, especially, the reaction temperature and the steam. The yield of H₂ increased at elevated temperatures, from 26.94 to 46.68%, while that of CO dramatically decreased, from 70.21 to 37.71 mol%. The highest H₂ yield, 46.68%, was obtained at the final gasifying temperature of 650 °C. Eucalyptus catalytic steam gasification indicated that the maximum H₂/CO ratio reached 1.24 at the gasification temperature of 650 °C and the steam partial pressure of 30 kPa. It can be concluded that eucalyptus is appropriate for synthesis gas production from eucalyptus volatiles by catalytic steam gasification while using nickel-loaded brown coal char as a catalyst.     

Exergy analysis of updraft and downdraft fixed bed gasification of village-level solid waste

The most commonly used for gasification of village-level solid waste is the fixed-bed gasifier, but there is no reasonable method to evaluate the gasification process. This paper attempts to find a gasifier that is most suitable for gasification of village-level solid wastes through exergy analysis method. Based on experimental data from literature, the exergy efficiencies and LHV(Low Heat Value) of product gas from updraft and downdraft fixed bed gasifier are studied in this paper. The results show that the updraft fixed bed gasifier has higher exergy efficiency, and the gas produced by the downdraft fixed bed gasifier has a higher heating value. Air gasification has higher exergy efficiency than steam gasification and pure oxygen gasification. The highest exergy efficiency at a gasification temperature of about 1000 °C and ER (Equivalence Ratio) value in the range of 0.33–0.36. The volatile content of gasification raw materials is higher, and the gasification efficiency is higher. Through the research of this paper, a new path to reasonably evaluate the gasification process is obtained.     

Plasma fixed bed gasification using an Eulerian model

Gasification of solid waste is considered as a green and sustainable solution to perform energy recovery from several waste streams. This work aims to adapt an Euler-Euler multiphase mathematical model to understand the effects of physical and chemical factors, i.e. equivalence ratio (ER), steam to fuel ratio (SFR), and input plasma power of municipal solid waste (MSW) fixed bed gasification. The model is capable of simulating temperature and velocity fields, as well as gas and solid composition variations inside the reactor. A two-step pyrolysis model is used considering the pyrolysis mechanism of cellulose and plastic components. Drying, pyrolysis, homogeneous gas reactions, and heterogeneous combustion/gasification reactions were also included in the model. It was shown that the proposed model could provide accurate predictions against experimental data with a deviation generally lesser than 10%. Conclusion could be drawn that an ER of 0.3 and an SRF of 0.5 seems to be the most favourable conditions in order to obtain a high-quality syngas. Higher plasma power is favourable to obtain a high-quality syngas. However, the high electric power required penalizes the process efficiency and may compromise the economic viability of a plasma gasification project.     

木屑高温空气气化实验研究

提出了一种生物质高温气化的新方法。选取木屑为气化物料，在700℃、800℃和1000℃分别进行高温气化实验。实验表明：高温气化有利于提高合成燃气热值，强化气化反应；合成燃气中CO2和CxHy的含量度热值随温度的变化规律与理论结果基本吻合，热值达到6．19MJ／m^3。证实了生物质高温气化技术的可行性。     

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.     

Potential to retrofit existing small-scale gasifiers through steam gasification of biomass residues for hydrogen and biofuels production

This work investigates the opportunity of retrofitting existing small-scale gasifiers shifting from combined heat and power (CHP) to hydrogen and biofuels production, using steam and biomass residues (woodchips, vineyard pruning and bark). The experiments were carried out in a batch reactor at 700 °C and 800 °C and at different steam flow (SF) rates (0.04 g/min and 0.20 g/min). The composition of the producer gas is in the range of 46–70 % H₂, 9–29 % CO, 12–27 % CO₂, and 2–6 % CH₄. A producer gas specific production factor of approx. 10 NL_pg/g_char can be achieved when the lower SFs are used, which allows to provide 80 % of the hydrogen concentration required for biomethanation and MeOH synthesis. As for FT synthesis, an optimal H₂/CO ratio of approx. 2 can be achieved. The results of this work provide further evidence towards the feasibility of hydrogen and biofuels generation from residual biomass through steam gasification.     

Syngas yield during pyrolysis and steam gasification of paper

Main characteristics of gaseous yield from steam gasification have been investigated experimentally. Results of steam gasification have been compared to that of pyrolysis. The temperature range investigated were 600–1000 °C in steps of 100 °C. Results have been obtained under pyrolysis conditions at same temperatures. For steam gasification runs, steam flow rate was kept constant at 8.0 g/min. Investigated characteristics were evolution of syngas flow rate with time, hydrogen flow rate and chemical composition of syngas, energy yield and apparent thermal efficiency. Residuals from both processes were quantified and compared as well. Material destruction, hydrogen yield and energy yield is better with gasification as compared to pyrolysis. This advantage of the gasification process is attributed mainly to char gasification process. Char gasification is found to be more sensitive to the reactor temperature than pyrolysis. Pyrolysis can start at low temperatures of 400 °C; however char gasification starts at 700 °C. A partial overlap between gasification and pyrolysis exists and is presented here. This partial overlap increases with increase in temperature. As an example, at reactor temperature 800 °C this overlap represents around 27% of the char gasification process and almost 95% at reactor temperature 1000 °C.     

生物质气化技术比较及其气化发电技术研究进展

生物质能是一种理想的可再生能源,由于其在燃烧过程中二氧化碳净排放量近似于零,可有效地减少温室效应,因而越来越受到世界各国的关注。首先对生物质能的概念及其转化方式进行了简单介绍,着重介绍了生物质气化技术在国内外的研究及应用发展现状,通过对固定床气化炉和流化床气化炉的技术性能的对比．提出了研究开发经济上可行、效率较高的生物质发电系统,是我国今后有效利用生物质能的发展方向。     

煤焦水蒸气催化气化动力学分析

利用固定床反应器研究了K、Ca、Ni和Fe金属对600～900℃内煤焦水蒸气气化的催化效果,分析了适用于原煤焦、脱灰煤焦和添加K、Ca、Ni和Fe金属后的煤焦水蒸气气化动力学模型。     

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.     

复合式低焦油固定床生物质气化装置研究

综合分析上吸式固定床及下吸式固定床生物质气化装置各自特点,提出复合式低焦油固定床生物质气化装置,建立生物质原料处理量为600 kg/h的中试规模试验装置并开展研究。研究结果表明:复合式低焦油固定床生物质气化装置具有结构简单、气化效率高、热效率高、碳转化率高、原料适用性广等优点,极大程度提高了燃气清洁程度,对于生物质气化、发电、供热、化石燃料替代等领域的工业化应用起到了极大的推动作用。     

Characterisation of fuel bound nitrogen in the gasification process and the staged combustion of producer gas from the updraft gasification of softwood pellets

This paper presents experimental results derived from test runs performed with a laboratory-scale updraft fixed-bed gasifier coupled to a combustion chamber to produce data for the characterisation of fixed-bed gasifier operation and to investigate the release behaviour and the conversion of fuel-bound nitrogen during gasification and subsequent staged combustion of the producer gas using softwood pellets. Spatial temperature profiles and the composition of the producer gas of the gasifier have been measured for different air flow rates. In addition, the concentrations of relevant nitrogenous gas species including tars have been measured in the producer gas and at different positions in the combustion chamber. The air flow rate has a significant influence on the composition of the producer gas and the temperature profile of the packed bed of the gasifier. Results show that during updraft fixed bed gasification almost the entire fuel-bound nitrogen is released as N bound in tars from the packed bed and is then subsequently released as HCN, NO, NH₃ and N₂ as a result of tar cracking during combustion. This strong N-fixation in the tars was not expected and is of great relevance concerning NO_x formation during combustion of the producer gas.     

Energy and exergy analysis and optimization of biomass gasification process for hydrogen production (based on air,steam and air/steam gasifying agents)

Growing the consumption of fossil fuels and emerging global warming issue have driven the research interests toward renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources. Biomass gasification is identified as an efficient technology to produce sustainable hydrogen. In this work, energy and exergy analysis coupled with thermodynamic equilibrium model were implemented in biomass gasification process for production of hydrogen. In this regard, a detailed comparison of the performance of a downdraft gasifier was implemented using air, steam, and air/steam as the gasifying agents for horse manure, pinewood and sawdust as the biomass materials. The comparison results indicate that the steam gasification of pinewood generates a more desired product gas compositions with a much higher hydrogen exergy efficiency and low exergy values of unreacted carbon and irreversibility. Then the effects of the inherent operating factors were investigated and optimized applying a response surface methodology to maximize hydrogen exergy efficiency of the process. A hydrogen exergy efficiency of 44% was obtained when the product gas exergy efficiency reaches to the highest value (88.26%) and destruction and unreacted carbon efficiencies exhibit minimum values of 7.96% and 1.9%.     

Kinetics of woodchips char gasification with steam and carbon dioxide

Kinetics of woodchips char gasification has been examined. Steam and CO₂ were used as the gasifying agents. Differences and similarities between kinetics of steam gasification and CO₂ gasification have been discussed. Comparison was conducted in terms of gasification duration, evolution of reaction rate with time and/or conversion, and effect of partial pressure on reaction rate. Reactor temperature was maintained at 900 °C. Partial pressure of gasifying agents varied from 1.5 bars to 0.6 bars in intervals of 0.3 bars. Steam and CO₂ flow rates were chosen so that both gasifying agents had equal amount of oxygen content. CO₂ gasification lasted for about 60 min while steam gasification lasted for about 22 min. The average reaction rate for steam gasification was almost twice that of CO₂. Both reaction rate curves showed a peak value at certain degree of conversion. For steam gasification, the reaction rate peak was found to be at a degree of conversion of about 0.3. However, for CO₂ gasification the reaction rate peak was found to be at a conversion degree of about 0.1. Reaction rates have been fitted using the random pore model (RPM). Average structural parameter, ψ for steam gasification and CO₂ gasification was determined to be 9 and 2.1, respectively. Average rate constant at 900 °C was 0.065 min⁻¹ for steam gasification and 0.031 min⁻¹ for CO₂ gasification. Change in partial pressure of gasifying agents did not affect the reaction rate for both steam and CO₂ gasification.     

Biomass steam gasification in bubbling fluidized bed for higher-H2 syngas: CFD simulation with coarse grain model

A comprehensive coarse grain model (CGM) is applied to simulation of biomass steam gasification in bubbling fluidized bed reactor. The CGM was evaluated by comparing the hydrodynamic behavior and heat transfer prediction with the results predicted using the discrete element method (DEM) and experimental data in a lab-scale fluidized bed furnace. CGM shows good performance and the computational time is significantly shorter than the DEM approach. The CGM is used to study the effects of different operating temperature and steam/biomass (S/B) ratio on the gasification process and product gas composition. The results show that higher temperature enhances the production of CO, and higher S/B ratio improves the production of H₂, while it suppresses the production of CO. For the main product H₂, the minimum relative error of CGM in comparison with experiment is 1%, the maximum relative error is less than 4%. For the total gas yield and H₂ gas yield, the maximum relative errors are less than 7%. The predicted concentration of different product gases is in good agreement with experimental data. CGM is shown to provide reliable prediction of the gasification process in fluidized bed furnace with considerably reduced computational time.     

Hydrogen production via steam gasification of ash free coals

The kinetics of the coal to hydrogen conversion can be significantly enhanced by introducing catalysts. The catalysts are, however, commonly deactivated by irreversible interaction with mineral matters in coal. This work addresses hydrogen production via steam gasification of ash free coals. Following the production of ash free coals (AFCs) derived from various raw coals (brown, bituminous, and coking coal), fixed-bed steam gasification of the AFCs was performed as a function of temperature and which was compared with one another and also with that of the matching raw coals. In the absence of a catalyst, AFCs produced from different parent coals exhibited similarly low gasification reactivity, comparable to a high rank coal (coking coal) at 700 °C. As expected, the reaction became faster with increasing temperature in the range, 700–900 °C. The steam gasification of AFCs was highly activated by K₂CO₃ above 700 °C. It was very likely that water–gas shift reaction associated with the gasification of AFCs was also catalyzed.     

Numerical study on solar spouted bed reactor for conversion of biomass into hydrogen-rich gas by steam gasification

A solar-powered biomass steam gasification system was developed, in which heat transfer model, flow model and chemical model were constructed to predict the distributions of temperature, pressure, mole fraction of syngas, and solar incident flux. Several key parameters of gasifier were designed to ensure the fluidization stability. Based on the model validation, gasifier performance simulations in the design working conditions were obtained. The effects of the key variable parameters, including the rim angle of the dish collector, steam-to-biomass mass flow ratio, biomass feeding rate and the solar irradiance in the different operation working conditions on the composition of syngas, lower heating value, and efficiencies were investigated. The results reveal that the coupled system implements the best gasification performance in the design conditions which the rim angle, steam-to-biomass mass flow ratio, and biomass feeding rate are set at 60°, 0.4, and 2.5 g/min, while the LHV, carbon conversion, and gasification energy efficiencies are 11.51 MJ/m³, 78.17%, and 93.01%, respectively. The overall energy efficiency considering solar energy is 30.79%.     

Absorption-enhanced steam gasification of biomass for hydrogen production: Effect of calcium oxide addition on steam gasification of pyrolytic volatiles

The effect mechanism of calcium oxide (CaO) addition on gasification of pyrolytic volatiles as a key sub-process in the absorption-enhanced steam gasification of biomass (AESGB) for H₂ production at different conditions was investigated using a two-stage fixed-bed pyrolysis–gasification system. The results indicate that CaO functions as a CO₂ absorbent and a catalyst in the volatiles gasification process. CaO triggers the chemical equilibrium shift to produce more H₂ and accelerates volatile cracking and gasification reactions to obtain high volatile conversion rates. Increasing the gasification temperature could improve the reaction rate of cracking and gasification of volatiles as well as the catalytic effect of CaO, which continuously increase H₂ yield. When the gasification temperature exceeds 700 °C, the sharp decrease in CO₂ absorption capability of CaO drastically increases the CO₂ concentration and yield, which significantly decrease H₂ concentration. The appropriate temperature for the absorption-enhanced gasification process should be selected between 600 °C and 700 °C in atmospheric pressure. Increasing the water injection rate (represented as the mass ratio of steam to biomass) could also improve H₂ yield. The type of biomasses is closely associated with H₂ yield, which is closely related to the volatile content of biomass materials.     

Effect of agglomeration/defluidization on hydrogen generation during fluidized bed air gasification of modified biomass

This study presents the effect of particle agglomeration on syngas emission during the biomass air gasification process. Various operating conditions such as operating temperature, equivalence ratio (ER), and amount of bed materials are employed. The concentrations of H₂ and CO increase along with the operating time as agglomeration begins, while CO₂ decreases at the same time. However, there is no significant change in the emission concentration of CH₄ during the defluidization process. The lower heating value increases while the system reaches the agglomeration/defluidization under various operating parameters. When the system reaches the agglomeration/defluidization process, the LHV value sharply increases. The results are obtained when the system reaches agglomeration/defluidization. The temperature increases while bed agglomeration occurs. A higher temperature increases the production of H₂ and CO, contributing to the LHV calculation.     

Hydrogen-rich gas from catalytic steam gasification of biomass in a fixed bed reactor: Influence of temperature and steam on gasification performance

The catalytic steam gasification of biomass was carried out in a lab-scale fixed bed reactor in order to evaluate the effects of temperatures and the ratio of steam to biomass (S/B) on the gasification performance. The bed temperature was varied from 600 to 900 and the S/B from 0 to 2.80. The results show that higher temperature contributes to more hydrogen production.