Abstract
The effect of the blend ratio and reactor temperature on the gasification characteristics of pyrolysis oil (PO) and black liquor (BL) blends with up to 20 wt% PO was studied in a pilot-scale entrained-flow gasifier. In addition to unblended BL, three blends with PO/BL ratios of 10/90, 15/85, and 20/80 wt% were gasified at a constant load of 2.75 MWth. The 15/85 PO/BL blend was used to investigate the effect of temperature in the range 1000–1100 °C. The decrease in fuel inorganic content with increasing PO fraction resulted in more dilute green liquor (GL), and a greater portion of the feedstock carbon ended up in syngas as CO. As a consequence, the cold gas efficiency increased by about 5%-units. Carbon conversion was in the range 98.8–99.5% and did not vary systematically with either fuel composition or temperature. Although the measured reactor temperatures increased slightly with increasing PO fraction, both unblended BL and the 15% PO blend exhibited largely similar behavior in response to temperature variations. The results from this study show that blending BL with the more energy-rich PO can increase the cold gas efficiency and improve the process carbon distribution without adversely affecting either carbon conversion or the general process performance.
Highlights
The development and large-scale deployment of cost-effective, liquid biofuels has been identified as a key to success in the de-fossilization of the transport sector
The results of this study demonstrate that a pilot plant designed for the gasification of black liquor (BL) needs only minor modifications, such as the addition of a pyrolysis oil (PO)/BL mixer, in order to successfully gasify PO/BL blends
Carbon conversion did not vary systematically with fuel composition, which shows quite clearly that the addition of up to 20% PO on a mass basis does not degrade the catalytic activity of BL Na
Summary
The development and large-scale deployment of cost-effective, liquid biofuels has been identified as a key to success in the de-fossilization of the transport sector. Biomass gasification is one of the pathways for biofuel production that has progressed towards commercialization in the past decade [1, 2]. Developed by Chemrec AB, the pressurized entrained-flow (EF) black liquor gasification (BLG) technology has been demonstrated for 28,000 h at the 3 MWth LTU Green Fuels pilot plant in Piteå, Sweden. Since its completion in 2005, the plant has been the site of several investigations into the gasification characteristics of black liquor (BL), which is a by-product of the pulping process [3,4,5,6,7,8]. The pulping chemicals are recovered for reuse in a manner similar to that in a pulp mill with a recovery boiler
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