Kinetic study on biomass gasification coupled with tar reforming for syngas production

Air gasification of biomass (sawdust) has been studied using an ASPEN plus model capable of predicting the producer gas composition and gasifier performance at different conditions. The methodology is based on an equilibrium-kinetic concept, which uses an equilibrium approach for combustion of tar and volatiles and a kinetic approach for char gasification. Gasification profiles identified by model showed that higher temperatures and equivalence ratios (ERs) are favorable for tar reduction and char conversion. With the increase of temperature, H-2 and CO contents increase while CO2 content decreases. The lower heating value (LHV) of producer gas increased as the temperature increased owing to both an increase of energetic components and an increase of char conversion. Model-predicted gas compositions were consistent with the experimental results. This shows that the developed model is accurate and it can play an important role in the simulation of air gasification of biomass and a wide variety of solid fuels such as municipal solid wastes and low-grade biomasses.