OXYGEN ENRICHED AIR GASIFICATION IN AN EXPERIMENTAL TWO-STAGE GASIFIER

摘要

Gasification proposes to convert a large variety of biomass, including wastes, into a convenient fuel inrnthe form of syngas. Syngas usually presents a lower heating value (LHV) below 6MJ/Nm~3. This LHV is due to thernhigh nitrogen content of syngas (45-50%) as air is usually used as the gasifying agent in small-scale applications. It isrnlow in comparison to the LHV of natural gas; too low for some applications. The use of oxygen-enriched air reducesrnthe nitrogen content of syngas and increases its LHV. This paper presents the preliminary results obtained on anrnexperimental two-stage gasifier using a mixture of 50% of oxygen and 50% of nitrogen as the gasification agent. Thernsyngas produced contains approximately 17% of nitrogen and has a LHV of 8.5MJ/Nm~3. The decrease of nitrogenrncontent not only increases the LHV at the output but also increases the reactive zones temperature potentiallyrnallowing a better carbon conversion. The tests also show that there is no increase in the wear of the facility on a shortrnterm basis. This will need to be validated on longer experiments.