High-quality syngas production from biomass driven by chemical looping on a PY-GA coupled reactor

A suitable reactor for high-quality syngas production was crucial for the biomass gasification process. In this study, a pyrolysis-gasification (PY-GA) coupled reactor was designed, built-up and studied for producing hydrogen rich syngas with low tar containing. The experiment of the chemical looping gasification (CLG) process combined with biomass pyrolysis was conducted, regarding as the influence of different temperatures and steam to biomass mass ratios (S/B ratios). The gas composition from the outlets of the reactor, carbon conversion efficiency, lower heating value (LHV) of gas, syngas yield, and cold gas efficiency (CGE) were calculated and evaluated. The hydrogen to carbon monoxide molar ratio (H-2/CO ratio) and the tar yield were compared with other similar technologies, and the possible reaction steps for high-quality syngas were finally discussed. The results showed that H-2 composition in the GA part could reach over 61%. The total carbon conversion efficiency could reach 99.08%, and the CGE of the production was at range of 46-61%. Comparing with some similar gasification technologies, the obtained H-2/CO ratio was over 3.47 mol/mol (820 degrees C and 1.0 kg/kg), and the whole process produced little tar during the reactions. The study provided with a novel method to take place the pyrolysis and gasification reactions in different reactors. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study designed a PY-GA coupled reactor for high-quality syngas production. The results showed that the reactor had high hydrogen content and total carbon conversion efficiency, with minimal tar production throughout the process.