High temperature air/steam gasification of steam exploded biomass

• Pretreatment of biomass under high pressure steam is called steam explosion. Hydrophobic dark coloured pellets (here referred as Black pellets) produced from this pretreatment technology were used in gasification experiments with both pure air and air-steam mixture as gasifying agents at an updraft High Temperature Air/steam Gasification (HTAG) unit. For comparison purpose, similar experiments were carried out with un-pretreated biomass pellets (referred as Gray pellets). Black pellets show the possibility to co-gasification with peat. Require less volume but, with high height to diameter ratio of the gasifier. High temperature gasification is preferred but decomposes at low temperature resulting around two times higher CO/CO2 ratio. With Black pellets, CO and hydro carbon contents of syngas is higher while H2 contentis higher with Gray pellets. Air gasification gave higher Lower Heating Value (LHV) with Black pellets compared to Gray pellets and was around 7.3 MJ/Nm3. Gas yields were higher with Gray pellets and they were more efficient in air gasification and efficiency was around 79.5% with higher Equivalence Ratio (ER). With steam addition to the feed gas of Black pellets result in syngas with LHV of 10.6MJ/Nm3 compared to 8.2 MJ/Nm3 with Gray pellets. Steam addition has reduced the gas yield of both pellet types. Efficiency was higher with Black pellets around 76.9%.Black pellets gave slightly more tar content in syngas compared to Gray pellets and was composed of mainly secondary tar while Gray pellets gave more tertiary tar. Cases with steam and high ER lowered the tar content. Under the tested conditions, Indene/Naphthalene ratio can be used to predict the tar content even when steam was added. In general, steam gasification of Black pellets is more feasible if syngas with high energy value is desired. But, Gray pellets with high ER was most efficient and contained lowest tar. If higher H2 yield is preferred, unpretreated pellets are more attractive.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Energiteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Energy Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

High temperature gasification

Steam explosion

Tar

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