Assessing biomass steam gasification technologies using a multi-purpose model

Abstract

Two advanced steam-gasification technologies of biomass, high temperature steam gasification (HTSG) and solar-assisted steam gasification, have been thermodynamically investigated in this work and compared with both conventional auto-thermal gasification and High Temperature Air and Steam Gasification (HTAG). A multi-phase, multi-physics 1D steady-state model has been built up to predict the biomass gasification performance, efficiency, yield and species of produced syngas at varying gasification methods and input parameters. In particular, heterogeneous and homogenous gasification reactions coupled with a radiative transfer were employed in the solar-assisted steam gasification. The results showed that the solar-assisted steam gasification technology demonstrates its potential to produce high quality syngas (nearly 42% H 2 and 35% CO). Moreover, it upgrades the heating value of the product syngas up to 1.4 times more than the original value, due to the additional solar energy induction. Compared with conventional auto-thermal gasification, it was found that the process efficiency can be improved from 65% to 81% if using the HTAG technology and the content of hydrogen in the syngas increased from 30% to 55% if applying HTSG. The modelling results agree considerably with the reported experimental and modelling data in literature, and also able to return a direct comparison of advantage and disadvantage of each gasification method, in terms of syngas quantity and quality.

An integrated kinetic model for downdraft gasifier based on a novel approach that optimises the reduction zone of gasifier

“…Besides it is a renewable source of energy. Therefore, researchers are working for the energy production using biomass ( [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], and [6]).…”

The results of study into the effect of air­steam blast on the low­grade fuel gasification process

“…The use of steam [18,19] is effective in production of high-energy gas (9-13 MJ/nm 3 ) although this technology requires significant heat consumption for formation of airsteam blast with involvement of costly equipment.…”

“…Consequently, in order to improve efficiency of the process of chemical-thermal conversion of plant materials into a combustible gas in a direct-flow gas generator, a complex of studies using achievements of modern scientific thought and methodology should be conducted. The most intensive way to produce gas is air-steam gasification of fuels [19,[22][23][24][25]. The advantages of this gasification method are as follows:…”

“…The recent methods of air-steam gasification [9,19] offered to produce generator gas from biomass with a heating value of 9-10 MJ/Nm 3 , are difficult in their maintaining. The task was to develop a simple by design and in maintenance system for preparation and feed of air-steam mixture to the direct-flow gas generator.…”

Detailed Kinetic Modelling for Tar Species Evolution in a Downdraft Gasifier

“…Particularly, biomass gasification is being used to convert biomass materials to useful gases (e.g. CO, H2, and CH4), with some dilution gases (N2, and CO2) and tar [4], and [5] which degrade the quality of the producer gases. Tar has a wide range of boiling points hydrocarbons that consists of one to five-ring aromatic hydrocarbons as reported by [6].…”