Fuel flexible gasification with an advanced 100 kW dual fluidized bed steam gasification pilot plant

Highlights: • Nine different fuels are converted into valuable product gases. • Certain tar species in some product gases indicate poorer gasification conditions. • Correlations between fuel compositions and product gas quality are shown. • Overall cold gas efficiencies of around 70% were calculated for all test runs. Steam gasification enables the conversion of heterogeneous solid fuels into homogeneous gaseous energy carriers. The utilization of biogenic residues and waste fractions as fuel for this technology offers a sustainable waste management solution to produce heat and power, secondary fuels and valuable chemicals after several cleaning and upgrading steps of the product gas. However, residues and waste fuels show unfavorable properties for gasification and, therefore, cause technical challenges. This paper presents experimental results carried out at an advanced 100 kW_th dual fluidized bed steam gasification pilot plant from nine single test runs. In the following the fuels that were gasified will be listed: (i) Five biogenic fuels, mainly residues: softwood, sugar cane bagasse, exhausted olive pomace, bark and rice husks; (ii) two different waste-derived fuels: a municipal solid waste fraction and a shredder light fraction; and (iii) a mixture of municipal solid waste fraction with a 25% blending of lignite based on lower heating value as well as pure lignite. Thereby, various product gas qualities were generated. The presented results offer the basis for a sustainable and promising waste management solution for the tested waste fuels.