Conversion of Woody Biomass Materials by Chemical Looping Process—Kinetics, Light Tar Cracking, and Moving Bed Reactor Behavior

Abstract

In recent years, chemical looping has evolved into a promising technique for carbonaceous fuel conversion. The chemical looping technology using biomass material as feedstock could provide a process that is environmentally attractive and sustainable. The focus of this study is to examine the kinetics of biomass decomposition and to evaluate the feasibility of using biomass as a renewable source for chemical looping processes. A series of thermogravimetric experiments were carried out under inert and reactive gas environments to investigate the kinetics of the devolatilization and gasification stages of biomass decomposition. Since tar derived from biomass pyrolysis is a major concern for many biomass conversion techniques, the cracking of biomass derived light tar using iron oxide-based composites was also investigated in a fixed bed reactor. Furthermore, a bench scale moving bed reactor was used to study the feasibility of biomass chemical looping in both cocurrent and countercurrent gas–solid contact modes.