The effects of calcium and potassium on CO2 gasification of birch wood in a fluidized bed

J Kramb, A Gomez-Barea, Nikolai De Martini, H Romar, Doddapaneni TRKC, J Konttinen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    30 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Birch wood was leached of its naturally occurring ash forming elements and doped with three concentrations of calcium or potassium before being gasified in a laboratory bubbling fluidized bed reactor. The wood samples were pelletized and inserted into a fluidized bed reactor where they were first pyrolyzed with N-2 and then gasified with CO2. In addition to tracking the gas concentration of the exit gas, char samples were taken from the fluidized bed and analyzed to study the char properties. The presence of potassium in the biomass was found to have a significant influence on the structure of the resulting char, however potassium did not have an observable catalytic effect on the overall gasification reaction rate with CO2 due to the formation of a unreactive coke layer on the char surface. In contrast, calcium did increase the char conversion rate and is likely the primary active catalyst in gasification of birch wood with CO2. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
    Original languageUndefined/Unknown
    Pages (from-to)398–407
    Number of pages10
    JournalFuel
    Volume196
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Keywords

    • Catalysts
    • fluidized bed

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