Study On the Effect Of Various Catalysts For Biomass Gasification Process

Abstract

The process of biomass gasification was carried out in a fluidized bed gasifier by using different biomass like rice husk, coconut coir and sugarcane bagasse as feed materials. The product gas or syngas produced was studied by varying parameters like temperature of operation, the use of catalyst as the bed material in the fluidized bed gasifier by maintaining other parameters like equivalence ratio and steam to biomass ratio constant. The process of gasification was carried out within a temperature range of 500-8000C. The catalyst materials were ground and resized to a size range of 400-500micron. The bed material was prepared by mixing silica sand with dolomite and silica sand with red mud in different proportion by weight. The biomass was dried before feeding the gasifier to remove the moisture content up to the desire level of 4-5%. The syngas produced was analyzed by a portable gas analyzer. It was found that the concentration of hydrogen in the syngas increases with the increase in temperature and the amount of catalyst as the bed material in the gasifier. The concentration of other components of syngas, viz. CO2, CH4 and CO was observed to remain constant or decrease slightly with increase in temperature.