Investigation of gasification reactions and H2/CO ratio analysis for rice husk air gasification simulation

Abstract

The syngas generated during gasification process is used for industrial process heat, power generation and chemical feedstock production. Gas composition, H2/CO and CO/CO2 ratios are the deciding factors for producer gas end-use. In the present work, rice husk air gasification simulation is carried out by non-stoichiometric equilibrium model using Gibbs free energy minimization by FactSage 6.3 software. Influence of gasification reactions and effect of temperature, equiv?alence ratio on gas composition was studied. The analysis was carried out to study the effect of operating conditions on producer gas heating value and gasification efficiency at various H2/CO ratios. Increase in temperature improves H2 and CO formation in water gas reaction and reduction of H2 formation was observed in water gas shift reaction due to endothermic behavior change. For all the values of the equivalence ratio, ?, an increase in temperature reduces the H2/CO and enhances the CO/CO2 ratio due to higher CO formation. For a particular, ?, value, maximum gas heating value and gasification efficiency were obtained at low H2/CO ratio.