Digestate and woodchips gasification: A comparison of different gasifying agents

Abstract

Digestate is the secondary product of the fermentation process in biogas plants. The use of digestate as a fertilizer is very common. However, this is more and more limited nowadays and therefore alternative uses for digestate are sought. The research described in this article maps the possibilities of using digestate from the wet fermentation process for the syngas generation. This work is focuses on the gasification of the digestate with spruce chips mixtures. The mixtures were prepared with a proportion of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of the digestate. The experiments were carried out on a semi-operational fluidized bed gasifier at atmospheric pressure. The working temperature of the fluidized bed was 810 °C; the gasification was autothermal. The gasification was carried out with three types of gasification agents, i.e. air, air-steam, and oxygen-steam for each fuel mixture. The aim of the research was to assess the effect of the digestate with wood chips on the qualitative and quantitative properties of the syngas. The digestate can be characterized as a secondary energy source reducing the consumption of primary energy sources. The produced syngas is of high quality and the digestate can become a very desirable fuel for the syngas production.