PERFORMANCE OF HIGH TEMPERATURE AIR/STEAM GASIFICATION OF HYDROTHERMAL CARBONIZED BIOMASS

In order to effectively use the biomass resources for thermal applications, use of biomass pretreatment technologies like hydrothermal carbonization are emerging. With the aim of studying the gasification performance of hydrothermal carbonized biomass (biocoal) in high temperature air/steam medium, gasification of two types of biocoal pellets produced from spent grain and horse manure, was carried out in a fixed bed updraft gasifier. Steam gasification gave syngas having 10-11 MJ/Nm(3) of LHV with both types of biocoal. The syngas yield and thus cold gas efficiency was higher with gasification of spent grain biocoal, but syngas purity in terms of tar and particulates was better with gasification of horse manure biocoal.