Gasification of palm empty fruit bunch in a bubbling fluidized bed: A performance and agglomeration study

Gasification of palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) was investigated in a pilot-scale air-blown fluidized bed. The effect of bed temperature (650-1050 degrees C) on gasification performance was studied. To explore the potential of EFB, the gasification results were compared to that of sawdust. Results showed that maximum heating values (HHV) of 5.37 and 5.88 (MJ/Nm(3)), dry gas yield of 2.04 and 2.0 (Nm(3)/kg), carbon conversion of 93% and 85 % and cold gas efficiency of 72% and 71 % were obtained for EFB and sawdust at the temperature of 1050 degrees C and ER of 0.25. However, it was realized that agglomeration was the major issue in EFB gasification at high temperatures. To prevent the bed agglomeration, EFB gasification was performed at temperature of 770 +/- 20 degrees C while the ER was varied from 0.17 to 0.32. Maximum HHV of 4.53 was obtained at ER of 0.21 where no agglomeration was observed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.