High temperature steam gasification of wastewater sludge

High temperature steam gasification is one of the most promising, viable, effective and efficient technology for clean conversion of wastes to energy with minimal or negligible environmental impact. Gasification can add value by transforming the waste to low or medium heating value fuel which can be used as a source of clean energy or co-fired with other fuels in current power systems. Wastewater sludge is a good source of sustainable fuel after fuel reforming with steam gasification. The use of steam is shown to provide value added characteristics to the sewage sludge with increased hydrogen content as well total energy. Results obtained on the syngas properties from sewage sludge are presented here at various steam to carbon ratios at a reactor temperature of 1173 K. Effect of steam to carbon ratio on syngas properties are evaluated with specific focus on the amounts of syngas yield, syngas composition, hydrogen yield, energy yield, and apparent thermal efficiency. The apparent thermal efficiency is similar to cold gas efficiency used in industry and was determined from the ratio of energy in syngas to energy in the solid sewage sludge feedstock. A laboratory scale semi-batch type gasifier was used to determine the evolutionary behavior of the syngas properties using calibrated experiments and diagnostic facilities. Results showed an optimum steam to carbon ratio of 5.62 for the range of conditions examined here for syngas yield, hydrogen yield, energy yield and energy ratio of syngas to sewage sludge fuel. The results show that steam gasification provided 25% increase in energy yield as compared to pyrolysis at the same temperature. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.