−− With the purpose of contributing to the energetic valuation of the solid wastes generated by the Colombian agricultural industry, a practical methodology for the design of a fluidized bed gasifier for rice husk on pilot scale was developed. The gasifier equipment, made up of a reaction chamber of 0.3 m of internal diameter and 3 m of overall height, was designed from theoretical and experime...

Due to energy and environmental issues, hydrogen has become a more attractive clean fuel. Furthermore, there is high interest in producing hydrogen from biomass with a view to sustainability. The thermochemical process for hydrogen production, i.e. gasification, is the focus of this work. This paper discusses the mathematical modeling of hydrogen production process via biomass steam gasificatio...

Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modeling applications of the biomass gasification process help to optimize the gasifier. This study aims to investigate the impact of several physical parameters on the behavior of gasification in a fixed-bed downdraft gasifier. To that end, the study presents a comparison of the results computed using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) model with experimental r...

The University of California in collaboration with West Biofuels, LCC, has developed an advanced thermochemical gasification system (5 ton/day) for the conversion of waste stream biomass for the production of bio-fuels and bio-energy. The “Pyrox” gasifier design is based on a dual-fluidized bed system operating at atmospheric pressure with air. Simulation of this gasifier was conducted with a n...

In this paper, an innovative power plant, constituted by a gas turbine in combined-cycle fuelled by a synthesis gas (or syngas), produced in a local biomass gasifier, is analyzed. The plant is integrated with an external combustion system, fed by cellulosic biomass, connected to a heat exchanger able to increase the air temperature, as in a regenerative cycle. The combustion products pass throu...

Untapped pine needles with high potential for energy generation in the hilly area are not only a waste of resource but also increase the chance of environmental hazards as forest fires and GHG emission. This study is conducted to propose a new hybrid system (PV/Wind/Biomass) using abundant pine needle resource as a replacement of existing roof-mounted PV/wind hybrid system and analyse the feasi...

This project has the objective to investigate the economic and technical perspectives for the replacement of woody biomass with non-woody biomass in a biomass gasification process. Non-woody biomass fuels like straw, manure and sludge are cheap fuels with an increased chlorine, sulphur and ash content. A representative biomass composition for non-woody biomass is 13 wt% ash, 0.3 wt% chlorine an...

Gasification of several types of biomass has been conducted in a fluidized bed gasifier at atmospheric pressure with steam as the fluidizing medium. In order to obtain the gasification profiles for each type of biomass, an artificial neural network model has been developed to simulate this gasification processes. Model-predicted gas production rates in this biomass gasification processes were c...

A study was conducted to quantify tar formation in a stratified downdraft gasifier using wood pellets. The effect of biomass flow rate on tar concentration was also analyzed, and more than thirty compounds in tar were quantified. Among the different compounds in tar, tertiary condensed products such as toluene, o/p-xylene, naphthalene, phenol, styrene, and indene were observed in significant am...

Biomass gasification is one of the alternatives to producing liquid fuels and chemicals from biomass residues. The gas produced in gasification contains CO, H2, H2O, CO2, light hydrocarbons and tars. Depending on the gasifier type, operating conditions and fuel, the light hydrocarbons can contain as much as 50 % of the total energy contents in the gas. The gas also contains catalyst poisons suc...