Syngas production from biomass gasification in China: A clean strategy for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

Biomass gasification, which can be categorized as a set of relatively clean processes, is a good option for hydrogen production. The main purpose of the present work was to focus on the use of natural olivine as a bed material to minimize the tar content and enhance the hydrogen yield. The catalytic gasification tests were carried out in a fluidized bed gasifier using steam as the fluidizing medium. Hydrogen yield slightly increased from 51.9 to 53.1 g/kg biomass, as biomass particle size (BP) decreased from 5.0 to 2.0 mm. The yield of tar also decreased from 0.15 to 0.07 g/Nm³ with BP decreasing from 5.0 to 2.0 mm. With an increase in the catalyst-to-biomass ratio (C/B) from 0.2 to 0.8, HY increased from 47.8 to 51.9 g/kg biomass and tar content (TC) decreased from 0.8 to 0.15 g/Nm³. Temperature and steam/biomass ratio (S/B) were also affected the syngas composition and HY, significantly.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomass
• fluidized bed
• gasification
• hydrogen
• olivine

Acknowledgement

Scientific Research Foundation of Key Laboratory of Coalbed Methane Resources and Reservoir Formation Process, Ministry of Education (China University of Mining and Technology) (No. 2015-007). The English expression was checked and improved by Emate (www.emate.ac.cn).