Conceptual Design of a Sugar Cane Biomass Gasifier Using CSFMB Model

摘要

Since 1978, Brazil has invested into bio-fuels alternatives, especially ethanol from sugar-cane processing and that has increased the bagasse production, which requires proper destination and a potential use of such biomass is the gasification process. In the present study, a conceptual design of a gasification system to convert sugar cane bagasse into syngas is presented, which considers air as gasification agent in a flexible configuration of bubbling fluidized bed reactor operating from atmospheric pressure up to 2 MPa, providing a net power output (referred at gas cold conditions) of 3 MWt and 66 MWt, respectively. In this last case, the gas may be used not just as a fuel for gas turbines and internal combustion engines for power generation but also to feed Fischer-Tropsch processes. The optimized conceptual design of the gasifier is described here and was achieved using the CSFMB (Comprehensive Simulator of Fluidized and Moving Bed Equipment). Simulations predicted the production of gas with high heating value as well stable operations at both conditions. The conceptual design would be followed by the detailed one and construction. Tests would be carried in the near future and would allow direct comparison between the calculated and experimental results.