Gasification of wood powder in a small-scale entrained flow gasifier

Abstract

Gasification of wood powder milled from commercially available wood pellets have been performed in a small-scale entrained flow gasifier. The main aim of this study is to investigate operational and feedstock requirements (mainly particle size distribution, (PSD)) for this small-sized gasifier to perform with good carbon conversion ratio. The effects of several parameters were investigated, resulting in variable performance. The investigated parameters were equivalence ratio (lambda, λ), oxidant type (air or oxygen), thermal load, pressure, burner head configuration and PSD. The syngas quality, defined as cold gas efficiency (CGE) and/or carbon conversion efficiency (CC) was reported as function of the above parameters. The gasifier achieved a satisfactory conversion when using oxygen as oxidant and at elevated pressure (8.2 bar(a)).