Design and validation of reactant feeding control strategies for the solar-autothermal hybrid gasification of woody biomass

Axel Curcio, Sylvain Rodat, Valéry Vuillerme and Stéphane Abanades

Energy, 2022, vol. 254, issue PC

Abstract: Several hybridization strategies of a solar-autothermal biomass gasifier were examined for stable and continuous operation under variable solar irradiation. The ultimate objective was to demonstrate the feasibility of controlled syngas production, through the modification of oxygen, water, and biomass injection rates. Various hybridization strategies were probed by thermodynamic analysis and experimentally validated. Thermodynamic equilibrium calculations detailed the impact of both H2O and O2 injection rates on the produced syngas composition under constant wood feeding. Oxygen injection decreased the H2:CO molar ratio, while reducing the solar thermal power required to carry out the gasification reaction. Meanwhile, the total H2+CO production dropped by 1.36 mol of H2 and 0.64 mol of CO per mole of O2 added, independently of the quantity of water provided. Validation experiments were then carried out under real concentrated solar flux in a directly-irradiated conical spouted-bed reactor, following distinct hybridization paths. Maintaining constant the H2:CO ratio above 1 during hybridization required to provide high amounts of water steam with oxygen, which penalized the gasifier efficient heating. In contrast, minimizing the water injection rate throughout hybridization strongly altered the H2:CO ratio but decreased the CO2 production and the solar thermal power requirement. Finally, the successful control of the outlet H2+CO volume flow rate with simultaneous oxygen and wood injection was demonstrated (under constant water feeding rate). Solar-to-fuel efficiencies were kept around 20%, while hybridization decreased the cold-gas efficiency below 80%.

Keywords: Concentrated solar energy; Solar reactor; Solar fuels; Steam-gasification; Biomass; Solar-autothermal hybridization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544222013846
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:254:y:2022:i:pc:s0360544222013846

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2022.124481

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().