Experimental study on catalytic steam gasification of municipal solid waste for bioenergy production in a combined fixed bed reactor

The catalytic steam gasification of municipal solid waste (MSW) for hydrogen-rich fuel gas production was experimentally investigated in a combined fixed bed reactor using the newly developed tri-metallic catalyst. The results indicated that the supported tri-metallic catalyst had a high activity of cracking tar and hydrocarbons, upgrading the gas quality, as well as yielding a high hydrogen production in catalytic steam gasification of municipal solid waste. A series of experiments have been performed to explore the effects of catalyst presence, catalyst to MSW mass ratio (C/M), catalytic temperature, steam to MSW ratio (S/M) and MSW particle size on the composition and yield of gasification gases. The experiments demonstrated that temperature was the most important factor in this process; higher temperature contributed to more hydrogen production and gas yield. Varying catalyst to MSW mass ratio (C/M) demonstrated complex effects on gas yield and composition of MSW gasification and an optimal value of 0.5 was found in the present study. Comparing with MSW catalytic gasification, the introduction of steam improved gas quality and yield, the optimal value of S/M was found to be 1.33 under the present operating condition. It was also shown that a smaller particle size was more favorable for gas quality and yield. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.