Fluidized bed gasification of Kingston coal and marine microalgae in a spouted bed reactor

Steam gasification experiments were performed using a low-rank coal from South Australia, a marine microalga, and a blend of leached microalgal biomass and coal, in a spouted, fluidized bed reactor. The effect of different operating conditions – air-to-fuel ratio (A/F), steam-to-fuel ratio (S/F) and bed temperature (T_b) – on the producer gas composition was investigated. Producer gas compositions were analyzed and samples of bed material were also examined to identify ash components formed during each experiment. The optimum operating conditions for coal gasification, in this system, were identified to occur with A/F = 1.82, S/F = 0.75 and T_b = 850 °C. These conditions resulted in a producer gas with the highest heating value (per mass of fuel fed), the highest extent of carbon conversion and the optimum H₂:CO ratio for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. In addition, preliminary attempts to gasify a sun-dried marine microalga are reported. The dried biomass, sieved to 1.0–3.35 mm, was gasified with air and steam. Preliminary experiments, utilizing the as-received biomass, proved unsuccessful due to rapid bed sintering. Leaching of the algal biomass to remove the extra-cellular salt and co-gasification of the resultant biomass (10 wt%) with low-rank coal also proved unsuccessful due primarily to blockages of the downstream product lines most likely due to attrition of the algae feed in the screw feeder and elutriation from the bed.