Solar-hybrid Thermochemical Gasification of Wood Particles and Solid Recovered Fuel in a Continuously-Fed Prototype Reactor

Houssame Boujjat, Sylvain Rodat and Stéphane Abanades
Additional contact information
Houssame Boujjat: CEA-LITEN Solar and Thermodynamic Systems Laboratory (L2ST), F-38054 Grenoble, France
Sylvain Rodat: Processes, Materials and Solar Energy Laboratory, PROMES-CNRS, 7 Rue du Four Solaire, 66120 Font-Romeu, France
Stéphane Abanades: Processes, Materials and Solar Energy Laboratory, PROMES-CNRS, 7 Rue du Four Solaire, 66120 Font-Romeu, France

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-15

Abstract: Solar thermochemical gasification is a promising solution for the clean production of low-emission synthetic fuels. It offers the possibility to upgrade various biomasses and waste feedstocks and further provides an efficient way to sustainably store solar energy into high-value and energy-intensive chemical fuels. In this work, a novel continuously-fed solar steam gasifier was studied using beechwood and solid recovered fuels (SRF) particles. Solar-only and hybrid solar/autothermal gasification experiments were performed at high temperatures to assess the performance of the reactor and its flexibility in converting various types of feedstocks. The hybrid operation was considered to increase the solar reactor temperature when the solar power input is not sufficient thanks to partial feedstock oxy-combustion. The hybrid solar process is thus a sustainable alternative option outperforming the conventional gasification processes for syngas production. Wood and waste particles solar conversion was successfully achieved, yielding high-quality syngas and suitable reactor performance, with Cold Gas Efficiencies (CGE) up to 1.04 and 1.13 respectively during the allothermal operation. The hybrid process allowed operating with a lower solar power input, but the H 2 and CO yields noticeably declined. SRF gasification experiments suffered furthermore from ash melting/agglomeration issues and injection instabilities that undermined the continuity of the process. This study demonstrated the solar reactor flexibility in converting both biomass and waste feedstocks into syngas performed in continuous feeding operation. The experimental outcomes showed the feasibility of operating the reactor in both allothermal (solar-only) and hybrid allothermal/autothermal (combined solar and oxy-combustion heating) for continuous syngas production with high yields and energy conversion efficiencies.

Keywords: solar gasification; hybridization; beechwood; biomass; waste conversion; solid recovered fuels; syngas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5217/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5217/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:19:p:5217-:d:424508

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().