Performance And Agglomeration Study Of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch In A Bubbling Fluidized Bed Gasifier
Loading...
Date
2011-05
Authors
Amiri, Pooya Lahijani
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Rapid development of modern industry has greatly increased the demand for energy in
recent years. Use of lignocellulosic biomass has fulfilled part of this growing demand in
developed countries. Biomass gasification is proved to be a promising strategy to convert
biomass into biofuel and bioenergy. Oil palm as the main contributor to biomass
resources in Malaysia has attracted considerable attention to fulfill the both traditional
and renewable energy demands in a sustainable manner. In this project, gasification of
oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) was investigated in a pilot scale air-blown bubbling
fluidized bed. An atmospheric air-blown bubbling fluidized bed gasifier with the height
of 1050 mm and internal diameter of 150 mm was developed. Silica sand was used as
bed material. The results obtained from gasification of EFB were compared to that of
sawdust as a common feedstock. Studying the effect of bed temperature (650 to 1050 oC)
on gasification performance of EFB and sawdust showed that maximum heating value
(HHV) of 5.37 and 5.87 (MJ/Nm3), dry gas yield of 1.84 and 2.0 (Nm3/kg), carbon
conversion of 91 and 86 % and cold gas efficiency of 65 and 72 % were obtained for
EFB and sawdust respectively at the temperature of 1050 oC. However, it was realized
that agglomeration was the major issue in EFB gasification at high temperatures due
to the high K2O content of EFB. To prevent the bed agglomeration, EFB gasification
was performed at temperature of 770±20 oC while the air-fuel equivalence ratio (ER)
was varied from 0.17 to 0.32. The maximum HHV of 4.45 (MJ/Nm3) was obtained at
ER of 0.21 where no agglomeration was observed. As another solution to reduce the
agglomeration tendency of the bed, calcined dolomite was used as an alternative bed
material. The effect of dolomite on the quality of the producer gas and HHV was
examined while the bed temperature was varied from 650 to 1050 oC. The results indicated
that bed agglomeration was still the main concern at temperatures above 850 oC.
Description
Keywords
Oil palm empty fruit bunch , in a bubbling fluidized bed gasifier