Experimental study on the cracking of tar derived from municipal solid waste gasification to produce syngas

ABSTRACT

The cracking of real tar obtained from a pilot-scale gasifier of municipal solid waste was studied. The tar was both thermally and catalytically cracked under N₂ atmosphere. Thermal cracking experiment was conducted at 600°C, 700°C, and 800°C, while catalytic cracking experiment using waste wood-derived biochar as catalyst was conducted at 700°C. Biochar was produced by conducting slow pyrolysis of wood in the lab-scale. Thermal cracking of tar at 800°C significantly improved the H₂ yield in the produced gas compared to thermal cracking at 600°C and 700°C. The results indicated a significant improvement upon the application of biochar compared to the thermal method in terms of H₂ yield, tar conversion, and H₂/CO ratio of the produced gas. The H₂ yield from catalytic cracking at 700°C was only slightly lower than the yield from thermal cracking at 800°C. The weight of biochar was reduced by around 10% after the tar cracking experiment, which indicated that the biochar was stable under the experimental condition. Further study by conducting the tar cracking experiment using producer gas as carrier gas could elucidate the potential of the developed waste wood-derived biochar for industrial application.

KEYWORDS:

• Tar cracking
• gasification
• municipal solid waste
• catalyst
• biochar

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the International Cooperation Project of Zhejiang Province (2019C04026) and the National Natural Science Foundation, China (51976196). The author would like to express thanks to Mr. Guobin Wang for his help during the elemental analysis and SEM analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the International Cooperation Project of Zhejiang Province [2019C04026];National Natural Science Foundation, China [51976196].

Notes on contributors

Petric Marc Ruya

Petric Marc Ruya is a research assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia. His M.Sc research was focused on the catalytic tar cracking from biomass gasification including modeling and experimental work.

Dwi Hantoko

Dwi Hantoko is presently a PhD student and research assistant in Institute of Energy and Power Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, China. His current research includes supercritical water gasification of wet waste for H₂-rich syngas production and heavy metal stabilization and process modeling of gasification process.

Zhang Haidan

Zhang Haidan has extensive experience in the field of advance technology of clean coal combustion and bioenergy. He is working in the Research and Development Institute, Zhejiang Energy Group, China.

Herri Susanto

Herri Susanto is the Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia. He is an expert on biomass gasification based power generation in rural area. His wide-ranging research interests are in catalytic gasification, syngas cleaning process, and biomass to liquid fuel.

Mi Yan

Mi Yan is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Energy and Power Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, China. His research areas are in the production of advanced biofuels from waste and biomass via conventional gasification, pyrolysis, hydrothermal, and supercritical water gasification. Dr. Mi Yan leads many research projects relating to waste-to-energy and pollution and emission control.