Catalytic gasification

Research overview >

Co-gasification of black liquor and pyrolysis oil for efficient gasification

This work is related to entrained flow gasification of black liquor and its mixture with various sources of biomass.

Sodium (Na) inherent in black liquor is known to have very high catalytic activity on char gasification and tar/soot reduction. However, both Na and moisture content (1/3 of total mass) in black liquor lower the gasification efficiency due to its energy penalty (latent heat). Therefore, Albert is trying to find a way to improve the efficiency of gasification by co-feeding other types of biomass such as pyrolysis oil, lignin residue from bioethanol production, and so on. Such an approach may benefit from relatively high heating values of those samples as well as catalytic activity of black liquor.

Special focus of Albert is to elucidate how Na exists in solid and gas phases at various reaction conditions and what the consequences in fuel conversion especially formation of undesired by-products such as tar, soot and char are.

The work is supported by Swedish Energy Agency via LTU biosyngas program (2013-2016) and catalytic entrained flow gasification of biomass (2017-2018), and main participants are Albert and Kawnish.

Some results

Char gasification reactivity (Arrhenius plot) of pyrolysis oil (PO, red) and black liquor (BL) and BL-PO mixtures (blue line). The reactivity can be increased in the factor of 20-100.

Publications

• Albert Bach-Oller, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Fuel conversion characteristics of black liquor and pyrolysis oil mixtures: efficient gasification with inherent catalyst, Biomass and Bioenergy 79 (2015) 155-165. [link to the article]

• Kawnish Kirtania, Joel Axelsson, Leonidas Matsakas, Paul Christakopoulos, Kentaro Umeki, Erik Furusjö, Kinetic study of catalytic gasification of wood char impregnated with different alkali salts, Energy 118 (2017) 1055-1065. [link to the article]

• Kawnish Kirtania, Gustav Hägström, Markus Broström, Kentaro Umeki, Erik Furusjö, Co-gasification of crude glycerol and black liquor blends – char morphology and gasification kinetics, Energy Technology 5 (2017) 1272-1281. [link to the article]

• Albert Bach-Oller, Kawnish Kirtania, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Co-gasification of black liquor and pyrolysis oil at high temperature (800-1400 °C): Part 1. Fate of alkali elements, Fuel 202 (2017) 46-55. [link to the article]

• Albert Bach-Oller, Kawnish Kirtania, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Co-gasification of black liquor and pyrolysis oil at high temperature (800-1400 °C): Part 2. Fuel conversion, Fuel 197 (2017) 240-247. [link to the article]

• Kentaro Umeki, Gustav Häggström, Albert Bach-Oller, Kawnish Kirtania, Erik Furusjö, Reduction of tar and soot formation from entrained flow gasification of woody biomass by alkali impregnation, Energy & Fuels 31 (2017) 5104-5110. [link to the article]

Conference presentations

• Erik Furusjö, Albert Bach Oller, Xiaoyan Ji, Chunyan Ma, Kentaro Umeki, Kawnish Kirtania, Elisabeth Wetterlund, Joakim Lundgren, Alkali enhanced entrained flow gasification of woody biomass, tcbiomass 2017, Chicago, USA, September 2017.

• Albert Bach-Oller, Gustav Häggström, Kawnish Kirtania, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Alkali Compounds as Tar and Soot Suppressors in Entrained Flow Gasification, 25th European Biomass Conference & Exhibition, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2017.

• Kawnish Kirtania, Joel Axelsson, Leonidas Matsakas, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Alkali Catalyzed Gasification of Woody Biomass with the Potential of Catalyst Recovery, 24th European Biomass Conference & Exhibition, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 2016.

• Albert Bach Oller, Kawnish Kirtania, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Characterization of tar and soot formation for an improved co-gasification of black liquor and pyrolysis oil, tcbiomass 2015, Chicago, USA, November 2015.

• Erik Furusjö, Kawnish Kirtania, Yawer Jafri, Albert Bach, Kentaro Umeki, Ingvar Landälv, Rikard Gebart, Co-gasification of pyrolysis oil and black liquor – a new track for production of chemicals and transportation fuels from biomass, tcbiomass 2015, Chicago, USA, November 2015.

• Albert Bach, Erik Furusjö, Kentaro Umeki, Fuel conversion characteristics of black liquor and pyrolysis oil mixture for efficient gasification with inherent catalyst, 22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, Hamburg, Germany, June 2014.