What is Biomass Gasification? Biomass gasification is a continuous substoichiometric (oxygen starved) burning process which "burns" biomass (e.g., wood chips) with air and steam in a reactor generating a syngas and pyrolysis liquids (tars) as fuels.
| Composition:
|
Coal-Gas1 |
Bio-Gas2
|
Nat. Gas3 |
|---|
| Hydrogen (H2) |
14.0% |
18.0% |
-- |
| Carbon Monoxide (CO) |
27.0%
| 24.0% |
--
|
| Carbon Dioxide (CO2) |
4.5%
| 6.0% |
--
|
| Oxygen (O2) |
0.6% |
0.4% |
-- |
| Methane (CH4) |
3.0% |
3.0% |
90.0% |
| Nitrogen (N2) |
50.9% |
48.6% |
5.0% |
| Ethane (C2H6) |
-- |
-- |
5.0% |
| HHV (Btu/scf) |
163 |
135 |
1,002 |
(1) Steam - Its generation and use, Babcock and Wilcox, pp. 5-20 and 5-21 discussion of coal producer gas.
(2) HMI International. Data derived from a fixed bed updraft gasifier design.(3) Steam -- Babcock and Wilcox, p. 5-19. |
Notes:
(1) Although the total hydrogen content of natural gas is high, the amount of free hydrogen is low. Because of this characteristic, natural gas is not as easy to burn as some manufactured gases with their high free hydrogen content.
The high hydrogen content of natural gas results in more water vapor produced in the combustion gases with a correspondingly lower efficiency.
|
