Combining Dual Fluidized Bed and High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor for Co-Producing Hydrogen and Synthetic Natural Gas by Biomass Gasification

Yangping Zhou, Zhengwei Gu, Yujie Dong, Fangzhou Xu and Zuoyi Zhang
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Yangping Zhou: Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Zhengwei Gu: Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Yujie Dong: Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Fangzhou Xu: Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Zuoyi Zhang: Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-21

Abstract: Biomass gasification to produce burnable gas now attracts an increasing interest for production flexibility in the renewable energy system. However, the biomass gasification technology using dual fluidized bed which is most suitable for burnable gas production still encounters problems of low production efficiency and high production cost. Here, we proposed a large-scale biomass gasification system to combine dual fluidized bed and high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTR) for co-production of hydrogen and synthetic natural gas (SNG). The design of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor biomass gasification (HTR-BiGas) consists of one steam supply module to heat inlet steam of the gasifier by HTR and ten biomass gasification modules to co-produce 2000 MW th hydrogen and SNG by gasifying the unpretreated biomass. Software for calculating the mass and energy balances of biomass gasification was developed and validated by the experiment results on the Gothenburg biomass gasification plant. The preliminary economic evaluation showed that HTR-BiGas and the other two designs, electric auxiliary heating and increasing recirculated product gas, are economically comparative with present mainstream production techniques and the imported natural gas in China. HTR-BiGas is the best, with production costs of hydrogen and SNG around 1.6 $/kg and 0.43 $/Nm 3 , respectively. These designs mainly benefit from proper production efficiencies with low fuel-related costs. Compared with HTR-BiGas, electric auxiliary heating is hurt by the higher electric charge and the shortcoming of increasing recirculated product gas is its lower total production. Future works to improve the efficiency and economy of HTR-BiGas and to construct related facilities are introduced.

Keywords: biomass gasification; GoBiGas; HTR-PM; high-temperature gas-cooled reactor; mass and energy balances; integrated energy systems; nuclear flexibility; HTR-BiGas (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: 2021
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