Technoeconomic Evaluation of a Gasification Plant: Modeling, Experiment and Software Development

Thermodynamic and economic feasibility of substituting producer gas for natural gas in a distributed generation platform, located in a car manufacturing factory, is performed. The distributed generation platform is capable of producing both power and heat demand of the factory with the use of biomass gasification. A comprehensive software program is developed in C# programming language, to simulate biomass gasification in an efficient and user-friendly manner. Considered gasification model is realistic with considering representative tar composition in the producer gas. The result of gasification simulation is verified through an experimental setup. The experimental setup is utilized to calibrate the simulation results with the use of appropriate modeling coefficients to get a closer agreement between the simulation and the experimental testing. It is concluded that multiplying equilibrium constants (K-1 and K-2) by 0.7 yields the best agreement between the simulation results and experimental values. It is also concluded that the gross total efficiency is 11.8% higher and the net total efficiency is 10.7% higher in the producer gas-fueled configuration than the natural gas-fueled configuration. The reasons for higher efficiencies in the producer gas-fueled configuration are mainly the type of the fuel used and the heat integration of the system. The sensitivity analysis shows that increasing the biomass moisture content will decrease CO relative composition and will increase H-2 and CH4 relative compositions in the producer gas. Also, biomass fuels with greater levels of moisture content not only increase the required inlet feed to the system but also increase the level of CO2 emission to the atmosphere. Approximately 4,468,300 m(3) of natural gas per year can be saved using the proposed system and the period of return of the project is 6.1 years. [GRAPHICS] .