Integrated Biomass Gasification with Catalytic Partial Oxidation for Selective Tar Conversion

Technical Report · Sun May 01 04:00:00 EDT 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1059700· OSTI ID:1059700

Zhang, Lingzhi ^[1]; Wei, Wei ^[2]; Manke, Jeff ^[2]; Vazquez, Arturo ^[2]; Thompson, Jeff ^[2]; Thompson, Mark ^[2]; Schmidt, Lanny ^[3]; Chakrabarti, Reetam ^[3]; Colby, Joshua ^[3]

---

1. GE Global Research Center, Irvine, CA (United States); GE Global Research
2. GE Global Research Center, Irvine, CA (United States)
3. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)

Biomass gasification is a flexible and efficient way of utilizing widely available domestic renewable resources. Syngas from biomass has the potential for biofuels production, which will enhance energy security and environmental benefits. Additionally, with the successful development of low Btu fuel engines (e.g. GE Jenbacher engines), syngas from biomass can be efficiently used for power/heat co-generation. However, biomass gasification has not been widely commercialized because of a number of technical/economic issues related to gasifier design and syngas cleanup. Biomass gasification, due to its scale limitation, cannot afford to use pure oxygen as the gasification agent that used in coal gasification. Because, it uses air instead of oxygen, the biomass gasification temperature is much lower than well-understood coal gasification. The low temperature leads to a lot of tar formation and the tar can gum up the downstream equipment. Thus, the biomass gasification tar removal is a critical technology challenge for all types of biomass gasifiers. This USDA/DOE funded program (award number: DE-FG36-O8GO18085) aims to develop an advanced catalytic tar conversion system that can economically and efficiently convert tar into useful light gases (such as syngas) for downstream fuel synthesis or power generation. This program has been executed by GE Global Research in Irvine, CA, in collaboration with Professor Lanny Schmidt's group at the University of Minnesota (UoMn).

• Research Organization: GE Global Research Center, Irvine, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: FG36-08GO18085
• OSTI ID: 1059700
• Report Number(s): DOE-FG--18085-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

09 BIOMASS FUELS
Biomass Gasification with Catalytic Partial Oxidation
Catalytic Partial Oxidation
Gasification with Catalytic Partial Oxidation
Integrated Biomass Gasification
Selective Tar Conversion