Syngas production from biomass using Fe-based oxygen carrier: Optimization

Abstract

Chemical looping gasification is a promising technology to convert biomass into syngas with low adverse effects by heat loss and production dilution. This study utilized 60% loading Fe2O3/Al2O3 oxygen carrier (OC) for gasification tests on four biomass samples: rice straw, corn stalk, peanut shell and wheat straw under OC/biomass (OC/B) ratio of 1.0, steam/biomass (S/B) ratio of 2.8, reaction time of 20 min, and reaction temperature of 850 °C. All biomass samples yielded similar gasification performances: CO content 19.2–23.1%, H2 content 36.5–41.1%, carbon conversion rate 72.3–82.2% and gas yield 0.78–1.04 L/g. The gasification performance using rice straw was optimized on maximum H2/CO ratio using three levels Box-Behnken experimental design: 899.6 °C, 20.3 min, OC/B = 1.02 and S/B = 2.89, leading to maximum H2/CO value of 2.20. Verification tests confirmed this prediction. The adopted Fe-based OC can be applied to generate syngas from the tested biomass with promising outcomes.