Abstract
In order to reduce the emission of NOx, SOx, and CO2 and mitigate the dependence on the fossil fuel, the use of renewable energy, especially the biomass energy, has been explored. Since most biomass fuels are hard to grind to the very fine size, gasification is the preferred technology of energy conversion. Updraft fixed bed gasification using partial oxidation process is adopted where air less than the stoichiometric quantity is admitted to oxidize the char to CO. The temperature profile within the bed reveals a characteristic temperature peak. The results reveal a correlation between the higher heating value (HHV) of producer gas and the peak gasification temperature (Tpeak). Coal with higher char content (~45%) is blended with biomass of low char content (~20%) in order to produce high quality gas. In this study, the Texas-based mesquite fuel was blended with Wyoming Power River Basin (PRB) coal with mass ratios of 100:0, 90:10, and 80:20 and fired downward into the gasifier. It was found that at a given mesquite to the coal mass ratio, the peak gasification temperature decreased with the increase in ER. With the increase of the coal ratio in the mesquite: coal blend and the peak temperature increased significantly; more combustible gases such as CO, CH4 were generated at the end of product gas, and the HHV of the product gas increased by 10%-20%.
Highlights
The utilization of wastes as a renewable energy source in a thermo-chemical process to generate electricity or heat has been widely used
The results reveal a correlation between the higher heating value (HHV) of producer gas and the peak gasification temperature (Tpeak)
It can be found that the mesquite fuel had very high VM content (>80%) while volatile matter of the Power River Basin (PRB) coal was less than 50% under dry ash free (DAF) basis, which means less gas would be liberated from PRB coal during the gasification process
Summary
The utilization of wastes as a renewable energy source in a thermo-chemical process to generate electricity or heat has been widely used. The US independent biomass energy industry today provides for the disposal of approximately 22 million tons/yr of solid biomass waste [1]. Brian et al [2] reported that approximately 60% of biomass energy consumption occurs in the forest products industry in US. Bio-chemical and thermo-chemical are the two main ways to convert biomass into energy. Gasification is a thermo-chemical process where a solid fuel was converted into gaseous species through a series of chemical reactions and physical transformation. The fixed bed gasifier can be classified as updraft, downdraft, and crossdraft. The updraft fixed bed gasifier is a counterflow reactor in which fuel is fed into the top and the air or the steam is supplied at the bottom. Fluidized bed gasifier usually has a large scale size and is used for industrial applications. The temperature of gas coming out from the updraft gasifier is less than 200 ̊C [4]
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