i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3

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Effect of design and operating parameters on the

gasification process of biomass in a downdraft
fixed bed: An experimental study

Feiqiang Guo a, Yuping Dong b,c,*, Lei Dong c, Chenlong Guo a

a
School of Electric Power Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, PR China
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, PR China
c
Shandong Baichuan Tongchuang Energy Company Ltd., Jinan 250101, PR China

article info abstract

Article history: The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of design and operating parameters,
Received 7 August 2013 mainly reactor geometry, equivalence ratio and biomass feeding rate, on the performance
Received in revised form of the gasification process of biomass in a three air stage continuous fixed bed downdraft
22 December 2013 reactor. The gasification of corn straw was carried out in the gasifier under atmospheric
Accepted 21 January 2014 pressure, using air as gasifying agent. The results demonstrated that due to the three stage
Available online 1 March 2014 of air supply, a high and uniform temperature was achieved in the oxidation and reduction
zones for better tar cracking. The designing of both the air supply system and rotating grate
Keywords: avoided bridging and channeling. The gas composition and tar yield were affected by the
Biomass parameters including equivalence ratio (ER) and biomass feeding rate. When biomass
Downdraft fixed bed feeding rate was 7.5 kg/h and ER was 0.25e0.27, the product gas of the gasifier attained a
Gasification good condition with lower heating value (LHV) about 5400 kJ/m3 and cold gas efficiency
Experiments about 65%. An increase in equivalence ratio led to higher temperature which in turn
resulted in lower tar yield which was only 0.52 g/Nm3 at ER ¼ 0.32. Increasing biomass
feeding rate led to higher biomass consumption rate and process temperature. However,
excessively high feeding rate was unbeneficial for biomass gasification cracking and
reforming reactions, which led to a decrease in H2 and CO concentrations and an increase
in tar yield. When ER was 0.27, with an increase of biomass feeding rate from 5.8 kg/h to
9.3 kg/h, the lower heating value decreased from 5455.5 kJ/Nm3 to 5253.2 kJ/Nm3 and tar
yield increased from 0.82 g/Nm3 to 2.78 g/Nm3.
Copyright ª 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved
.

exacerbated the concerns over energy crisis caused by over-

1. Introduction exploitation of fossil fuels. Research has increasingly
included efforts to partially replace fossil fuels with renewable
With the fast economic growth, increasing demand for en- energy sources [1]. Of all the renewable energy sources,
ergy, particularly in developing countries like China, has biomass energy is the only renewable energy source of carbon

* Corresponding author. School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, PR China. Tel./fax: þ86 531 88392199.
E-mail addresses: shandaguofeiqiang@163.com (F. Guo), dongyp@sdu.edu.cn (Y. Dong).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.01.130
0360-3199/Copyright ª 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
5626 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3

and is able to convert into convenient solid, liquid and pressure drop through the porous gasifier bed. In order to
gaseous fuels [2]. In China, Biomass is abundant and has been enhance gas heat values, Thanapal et al. [15] studied dairy
widely used for a long time. The thermochemical conversion biomass gasification in a medium with enriched oxygen vary-
is one of effective methods to convert biomass to gas, liquid or ing and the effect of enriched air mixture, equivalence ratio and
solid fuel [3,4]. This technology has significant environmental steam fuel ratio on the performance of fixed bed gasifier was
benefits from clean exploitation of biomass, and the fuels studied. They found that peak temperature and carbon dioxide
converted from these residues release a small net emission of production increases with corresponding decrease in carbon
CO2 and other greenhouse gases compared with fossil fuels. monoxide with increase in oxygen concentration. Yoon et al.
As a thermochemical conversion technology, gasification is investigated non-catalytic autothermal gasification of woody
an important method to convert biomass into combustible biomass with air and steam mixtures. They found that
gaseous fuels by partial oxidation of the biomass at high Hydrogen increased with both equivalence ratio and steam-to-
temperature. Different gasifiers are employed in this process, biomass ratio with corresponding lower heating value of the
mainly including fixed bed, entrained flow and fluidized bed dry gaseous product varied from 2000 to 3400 kJ/Nm3.
[5,6]. The main difference among these reactors is concerned The objective of this work was to present the design and
with how the biomass and oxidizer are moved in the reactor. experimental results of a fixed bed gasification system using a
Compared with the fluidized bed and entrained flow gasifiers, three air stage downdraft approach and rotating grate system
fixed bed gasifier is well suited for small scale applications. The with corn stalk as feedstock. The stable and continuous
fixed bed includes downdraft and updraft fixed bed gasifier, working of the gasifier with lower tar yield and higher gas
and the selection of gasifier is determined by their different quality was expected in the experiments. The results will
features. Besides, the tar problem is still considered as one of provide a good reference for the design of a scale-up gasifi-
the main bottlenecks for industrializing the technology of cation system.
biomass gasification. The downdraft fixed bed gasifier, in
comparison with updraft gasifier, has the advantage of low tar
generation, which is caused by the effect of the gas passing 2. Materials and methods
through a high temperature zone, enabling a partial cracking of
the tars formed during gasification [7e9]; therefore this 2.1. Biomass material
investigation chooses downdraft fixed bed as the gasifier.
Many researchers have paid special attention to characterize The biomass used in this study is corn stalk with a relative
the biomass gasification process through experimental studies, homogeneity in size. The corn stalk used comes from Jinan,
not only in pilot plants, but also in installations at laboratory China. The production of corn stalk is about 220 million tons
scale. Ma et al. [10] studied biomass gasification in a 190 kWe every year in China, and the material represents a kind of
pilot-scale biomass fixed bed using a double air stage downdraft huge straw biomass resource. The moisture and heating value
approach and found relations for the effect of the secondary air were measured by means of a drying oven DHG-9240A and
supply on the gas composition and heating value. Tinaut et al. calorimeter system HY-A9. Ultimate analysis and proximate
[11] developed a study on the biomass gasification process in a analysis were determined by Elemental Analyzer (Vario
fixed bed downdraft gasifier. The effect of air superficial velocity ELCHNO) and Muffle furnace (XL-2006). Table 1 summarizes
and particle size on the autothermal gasification process was the properties of corn stalk.
studied taking into account the propagation velocity. Pérez et al.
[12] studied effect of operating and design parameters on the 2.2. Three air stage downdraft gasifier
gasification/combustion process of waste biomass in fixed bed
downdraft reactors. They obtained the optimal gasification The current experiments were performed using a downdraft
conditions by changing the air superficial velocity, biomass gasifier with three stage of air supply. The gasifier was
particle size and biomass moisture content. They found that the
optimal gasification conditions of lower heating value of the
producer gas ¼ 2965.6 kJ/Nm3, tar concentration ¼ 7.73 g/Nm3 Table 1 e Properties of corn stalk.
were obtained with the following set of inlet conditions: air su- Fuel Corn stalk
perficial velocity of 0.06 m/s, biomass particle size between 2 and
Proximate analysis (wt. %)
6 mm, and biomass moisture content of 10.62%. Moisture 12.5
Other empirical works using similar experimental ap- Volatiles 69.5
proaches have been developed. Kramreiter et al. [13] built a Fixed carbon 12.2
125 kW twin-fire fixed bed gasification pilot plant. Basic pa- Ash 5.8
rameters like the type of wood chips, power and air distribution Ultimate analysis (wt.%-daf)
Carbon 47.54
were varied to investigate the effect on gas composition, tar
Hydrogen 6.02
content in the producer gas and carbon content in the ash.
Nitrogen 0.77
Sharma [14] studied the temperature, gas composition, heating Sulfur 0.13
value and trends for pressure drop across the porous gasifier Oxygen 43.87
bed, cooling-cleaning train and across the system as a whole in Others 1.67
both firing as well as non-firing mode on a 75 kWth downdraft LHV (kJ/kg) 15,527
gasifier system. Experiments showed that the rise in the bed Bulk density (g/cm3) 0.081
Particle size (cm) 2e5
temperature due to chemical reactions strongly influences the
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3 5627

Fig. 1 e Sketch of the experimental setup.

designed and built at Shandong Baichuan Tongchuang Energy The downdraft gasifier has four distinct reaction zones
Company Ltd. The gasifier has an internal diameter of 0.42 m from top to the grate: drying, pyrolysis, oxidation and reduc-
and a total height of 1.05 m. The height from the reactor top to tion. The drying process occurs in drying zone in the upper
the grate center is 0.85 m and the height of feed material in the part of the reactor, as well as lighter compounds devolatili-
gasifier is kept about 0.63 m in the tests. The gasifier is built of zation. Pyrolyzed gas and charcoal are generated in pyrolysis
carbon steel with an internal coating of refractory material zone and flow downwards. Then, the pyrolysis gases pass
which is surrounded by 15 cm of insulating blanket for safety through the combustion zone where oxidation reactions occur
and minimizing heat losses. and release heat. The heat generated in the combustion zone
The feedstock is fed continuously from the hopper by a is transferred to the pyrolysis, drying zones for biomass drying
screw conveyor into the gasifier at the top of the reactor. The and devolatilization [17,18]. Tar generated in pyrolysis zone
biomass flow out of the hopper depends on the bed density and cracks into non-condensable gases due to the high tempera-
the rotation speed of the drive motor .The mass flow of ture of the combustion zone. The gas stream flows to the
biomass is in the range of 5e10 kg/h, and the amount of fuel reduction zone at the bottom of the reactor where the un-
can be varied by a frequency converter. An agitator is mounted converted carbon and ash promotes its endothermic reduc-
above the feed material in the gasifier to agitate the feeding tion reactions. The product gas, leaving the reduction zone at
fuels, avoiding bed bridging [16]. The level of feed material in grate, is sampled for analysis.
the gasifier can be measured with a manual dip stick.
In order to make the uniform air distribution in the oxidation
2.3. Operating procedures
and reduction zones, air is fed by three stages as seen in Fig. 1.
The distances from the grate center to the first, second and
The gasifier is operated at atmospheric pressure. First, a
third stage air are 0.43, 0.7 and 0.36 m respectively. The first
specified quantity of feedstock in the gasifier is ignited and
stage air is fed through a pipe along the vertical axis of the
induced fan is turned on to preheat the gasifier. Afterwards,
gasifier and is injected around by a nozzle. The second and third
airs are injected by nine nozzles which are located on the cross-
section of the gasifier, as shown in Fig. 2, along the circumfer-
ential uniform distribution. The air supply is controlled by
blowers and can be read by flow meters respectively.
A special rotating grate system is designed to dispose the
ash continuously. The rotating grate system includes three
rotating grates which are built by RQTAl22 heat resisting cast
iron, and is driven by a motor through chains. There are many
grooves and holes on the surfaces of the grates which can take
ash out of the gasifier and let the product gas go through. The
advantage of this construction is to avoid the formation of
bridges and to promote the bed continuous movement. The
ash falls down into the ash chamber and is transported out of
the gasifier by a discharge device. Besides, the coke which may
appear at high temperature during the gasification process
can be crushed and disposed with ash by the rotating grate
system, which also helps to ensure the continuous and stable
working of the gasifier. Fig. 2 e The air injection of the second and third air.
5628 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3

biomass is fed into the gasifier at desired feeding rate by the

screw feeder, and the air flow rate is adjusted properly to
ensure the sufficient air atmosphere in the gasifier. The tem-
perature of the gasifier is raised step-by-step. When the
temperature at oxidation zone reaches about 900  C after
about 1.5 h, the grate can be activated and the tests start up.
Then, the first, second and third airs are adjusted to
maintain the desired temperatures. As the fuel was gasified,
the ash produced was gradually discharged by the rotating
grate system. The bed was maintained at a constant height by
adjusting the fuel feeding rate and ash discharging rate. When
the gasifier has reached a steady-state, all parameters are kept
constant for at least 60 min for gas sampling and analysis.

2.4. Product gas sampling and measurement procedures

Temperatures along the gasifier are monitored every 60 s by

type K thermocouples located at 0.06, 0.13, 0.2, 0.27, 0.34, 0.41, Fig. 3 e Temperature axial profile inside the gasifier above
0.48 and 0.55 m above of the grate center. In order to avoid the grate center.
possible problems with the flowing of the biomass as it is
consumed, thermocouples are projected up to the internal
reactor wall and the temperatures are read as the axial tem-
shown in reaction (1). The pyrolysis gases, including volatile
perature distribution inside the gasifier [19]. The thermocou-
gases and tar, then flow downwards.
ples can be adjusted at radial direction if necessary to detect
The location below pyrolysis zone is oxidation zone where
the radial temperature distribution. The temperatures pre-
the charcoal and volatile gases burn fiercely (reactions (2)e(6))
sented within this investigation were all given as the average.
with homogeneous air distribution, so that a great quantity of
When the gasifier reaches a steady-state at each test, gas
heat is released to meet the heat demand for the whole gasi-
sampling is carried out. The condensable compounds which
fication process. The high temperature in the oxidation helps
include tar, water and a few soot particles are absorbed in the
reduction reactions and thus tar cracking takes place to
acetone bottle in ice-water bath. MgSO4 is added into the tar-
improve the calorific value and reduce the tar content in the
contained solution with 10e15 g per 100 ml to absorb water,
gas, as suggested by Devi et al. [20] and Bhattacharya et al. [21].
and then the solution is filtered. The tar and acetone are
separated on a rotary evaporator (RE-5299) at 40  C for about Pyrolysis : Cx Hy Oz /Charcoal þ Tar þ Volatile gases (1)
2.5 h. Finally, the remaining tar is weighed to determine its
quantity. The clean, cool and dry gas downstream the tar Oxidation : CðsÞ þ O2 ¼ CO2 (2)
sampling system is sampled by a gas sampling bag at 10-min
intervals. Then, the main gas composition is analyzed by a gas Partial oxidation : CO þ 0:5O2 ¼ CO2 (3)
chromatography (GC, Agilent 3000 A) which can detect CO, H2,
CO2, O2, CH4, CnHm (includes C2H4, C2H6 and C3H8) and N2. To Hydrogen oxidation : H2 þ 0:5O2 ¼ H2 OðgÞ (4)
assure the reliability of the test results, each test is repeated for
five times, and the variability of measuring data is within 5%. Methane oxidation : CH4 þ 1:5O2 ¼ CO þ 2H2 O (5)

Tar oxidation : Cp Hq ðTarÞ þ ðn=2 þ m=4ÞO2

3. Results and discussion (6)
¼ nCO þ ðm=2ÞH2 O

3.1. Temperature distribution in the gasifier

Water  gas shift : CO þ H2 O4CO2 þ H2 (7)

After the biomass was fed into the gasifier, the biomass ma-
Steam reforming : CH4 þ H2 O ¼ CO þ 3H2 (8)
terial underwent moisture evaporation, pyrolysis and char
gasification primarily in the riser. When the biomass feeding
rate was 7.5 kg/h, the height of the biomass in the gasifier was Boudouard : CðsÞ þ CO2 ¼ 2CO (9)
kept at 0.63 m, and the flow rates of the first, second and third
stage air supply were 1.4 m3/h, 1.4 m3/h and 6.6 m3/ Water  gas : CðsÞ þ H2 O ¼ CO þ H2 (10)
h(ER ¼ 0.29), the axial temperature distribution inside the
gasifier was shown in Fig. 3 based on their average value from Methanation reaction : CðsÞ þ 2H2 ¼ CH4 (11)
T1 to T8.
The location above 0.48 m from the grate is the pyrolysis Tar reforming : Cp Hq ðTarÞ þ nH2 O ¼ nCO þ ðn þ m=2ÞH2 (12)
zone with temperature below 578  C (T2). The biomass parti-
cles are decomposed into volatile gases (CO, H2, CO2, CH4 and
light hydrocarbons), charcoal and tar in the pyrolysis zone, as Tar cracking : Cp Hq ðTarÞ/Cx Hy þ C þ H2 þ CO (13)
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3 5629

Fig. 5 e Effect of the equivalence ratio on the temperatures

Fig. 4 e Temperature radial profiles inside the gasifier.
in the gasifier.

The reduction zone is just next to the bottom of the

oxidation zone. The oxygen is exhausted and only ash and 3.2. Effect of equivalence ratio
unconverted carbon are left in this zone, so that the temper-
ature decreases sharply as some endothermic reduction re- The equivalence ratio, ER, defined as the ratio of the actual air
actions occur (reactions (7)e(13)). It is believed that the ash of supply to the stoichiometric air required for complete com-
biomass was mainly composed by oxides, particularly CaO, bustion on a daf (dry ash free) basis is calculated by Eq. (14) in
MgO, K2O, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 which have obvious function on tar this study. ER indicates the oxygen feed in the gasification and
catalytic decomposition [22]. Therefore, a uniform and stable it is a crucial factor that affects the performance of the gasi-
reduction zone is important in decreasing the tar content and fication process. ER was changed by adjusting the air feeding
improving gas quality. rate during the experiments. Seven experiments were per-
The use of three stage of air supply aims at realizing the formed by changing only air feeding rate with the biomass
uniform air distribution in oxidation and reduction zones, and feeding rate kept constant, contributing to a detailed para-
consequently the uniform reaction can be gained in the same metric study of the effect of ER. The experimental conditions
cross section of the gasifier. The radial temperature distribu- are presented in Table 2.
tion in oxidation zone and reduction zone is shown in Fig. 4.  
Fm;air =Fm;fuelðdafÞ Actual
The temperature at T4 (0.34 m above the grate) has a little ER ¼   (14)
Fm;air =Fm;fuelðdafÞ stoich
fluctuations, while little difference is observed at the location
below T5 which indicates that the air distribution is uniform where,
in the same cross section and in turn a more consistent re- 
  1:293 Cdaf Hdaf
action intensity is achieved. The uniform reaction intensity Fm;air =Fm;fuelðdafÞ stoich ¼ 1:866 þ 5:55
0:21 100 100
has an important effect on avoiding the phenomenon of  (15)
Sdaf Odaf
bridges and channeling resulting from uniform reaction. þ 0:7  0:7
100 100
During the whole tests operation, the gasifier worked stable
and no bridges or channeling phenomenon occurred. The where, Fm,i(daf) is the mass flow rate of i on a daf basis [kg/h];
stable working favored more stable gasification results, Idaf is the mass fraction of I on a daf basis.
including gas composition and tar yield, and the variation of Fig. 5 shows the temperatures in the gasifier with the
these parameters were relatively small in the following tests changing of ER. The increase of ER enhances the combustion
even though the equivalence ratio and biomass feeding rate reactions to release heat, which results in a higher operating
were changed. temperature in the gasifier. The change trend of axial

Table 2 e Effect of the equivalence ratio on the gasification performance.

No. Run1 Run2 Run3 Run4 Run5 Run6 Run7
Feeding rate, kg/h 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5
Air flow, Nm3/h
First stage 0.9 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.6 1.8
Second stage 0.9 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.6 1.8
Third stage 4.1 5.0 5.7 6.2 6.6 7.3 8.5
ER 0.18 0.22 0.25 0.27 0.29 0.32 0.37
5630 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3
Fig. 6 e Effect of ER on gas composition.
temperature in the gasifier is similar at different ER. The
temperature is relatively low in upper portion of the gasifier
where is the pyrolysis zone, and the peak temperature occurs
at oxidation zone (T4).
The experimental results of gas composition by the varia-
tion of the ER are shown in Fig. 6. With the increase in ER, the
volume fraction of H2 increased first and attained the highest
value of 12.89% at ER ¼ 0.25. Keeping on increasing ER, the
combustion reaction (reaction (4)) increased which resulted in
the decrease in H2. The changing trend of CO was similar with
H2 with the peak value of 19.41% at ER ¼ 0.27. The trends of CO
and CO2 represent the main carbon conversion during the
gasification process. Thus, it could be seen that the trend of
CO2 was almost opposite to CO and approached the minimum
value of 15.49% at ER ¼ 0.27.
A higher value of ER represents that more CH4 burns with
O2 (reaction (5)) and the formation of CH4 (exothermic reaction
(11)) is inhibited at higher temperature. Therefore, the volume
fraction of CH4 decreased with the increase of ER. CnHm rep-
resents light hydrocarbons (C2eC3) produced in the gasifier
with total volume fraction about 1%. There was no evident
change of CnHm with the varying ER. The dry gas lower heating
value at the standard state of 101.3 kPa and 273 K can be
estimated from the gas composition by Eq. (16):
LHV ¼ 107:98H2 þ 126:36CO þ 358:18CH4
 
þ 629:09Cn Hm kJ=Nm3
where, CO, H2, CH4 and CnHm are percentages of the volume
fraction of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane and hydro-
carbons in the product gas.
Since the gas heating value was determined by the con-
centrations of gases, the LHV increased first and decreased
afterwards with increase in ER and reached the peak value at
ER ¼ 0.25e0.27. An increase in ER leads to higher temperature
in the gasifier due to stronger combustion reactions (mainly
reaction (2)), as shown in Fig. 5. More H2 and CO generate by
biomass pyrolysis (reaction (1)) and tar decomposition (reac-
tion (6), (12), (13)), which leads to the increase in LHV. How-
ever, too high ER results in the decrease in the volume fraction
of combustible gases (H2, CO, CH4 and CnHm) as a result of their
combustion reactions (reaction (3)e(5)). Besides, more N2 was
supplied into the gasifier at higher ER which diluted the
combustible gases. Thus, the lower heating value (LHV) of the
product gas rapidly decreased.
Variation of cold gas efficiency and carbon conversion ef-
ficiency are used to investigate the effect of ER on the energy
and mass conversion [23]. The cold gas efficiency (h) in this
study is calculated as:
½LHVgas  Vg
h¼  100% (17)
½LHVfuel
where, [LHV]gas is the lower heating value of the gas, kJ/Nm3;
Vg is the specific gas yield at the standard state, Nm3/kg.
Nitrogen tracer method was developed to determine the
gas yield from the percentage of nitrogen in the gases pro-
duced during gasification. The corn stalk has very low per-
centage of N which is 0.77% (Table 2), which is very low
compared to the amount of N2 which enters the reactor along
with air. Thus N2 released from the fuel during gasification is
negligible compared to N2 from air used as the gasification
medium. From the concentration of nitrogen in the product
gas and the total amount of nitrogen entering the reactor
along with air in the gasification process, the total dry vol-
umes of gas produced can be estimated using the following
formula:
Qa  4N2  
Vg ¼ Nm3 =kg (18)
40N2
where, Qa is the volume of air fed for 1 kg biomass, Nm3/kg; 4N2
represents the volume fraction of N2 in air at the standard
state, 78.12%; 40N2 is the volume fraction of N2 in product gas at
the standard stage, vol. %.
The carbon conversion efficiency (hc) is defined as the ratio of
carbon which is converted from the added fuel into gaseous
carbon components to the carbon in the added fuel. As the tar
was removed from the gas at ordinary temperatures, the carbon
in tar was not taken into account in the experiments. Therefore,
the carbon conversion efficiency can be calculated as:
12ðCO2 þ CO þ CH4 þ nCn Hm Þ
hc ¼  Vg  100% (19)
22:4  C
where, C is the percentage of mass fraction of carbon in the
fuel.
(16)
Fig. 7 e Effect of ER on cold gas efficiency and carbon
conversion efficiency.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3 5631

Fig. 7 gives the values of cold gas efficiency and carbon

Table 3 e Effect of the feeding rate on the gasification
conversion efficiency at different ER. When ER  0.25, the cold
performance.
gas efficiency increased sharply, and then remained at a high
No. Run8 Run9 Run10 Run11 Run12
level about 65% when ER was between 0.25 and 0.27. The cold
gas efficiency begun to decrease when ER  0.3, which indi- Air flow, Nm3/h
First stage 1.08 1.24 1.39 1.59 1.72
cated that the total energy conversion of biomass decreased.
Second stage 1.08 1.24 1.39 1.59 1.72
The carbon conversion efficiency represents the carbon con-
Third stage 4.97 5.74 6.43 7.37 7.97
version from biomass fuel to product gas, which is the main ER 0.27 0.27 0.27 0.27 0.27
element conversion during biomass gasification process. With Feeding rate, kg/h 5.8 6.7 7.5 8.6 9.3
an increase ER from 0.18 to 0.27, the carbon conversion effi-
ciency increased from 51.44% to 83.78%. As ER further
increased, the carbon conversion efficiency did not show any
and higher tar yield. Therefore, a study is carried out to
significant change and remained at about 90%. That indicates
investigate its effect on gas and tar yield. The rotational fre-
that higher ER favors the reactions involving carbon and about
quency of grates changed with the biomass feeding rate to
90% of the carbon in biomass fuel can be converted to gas by
keep the height of feed material in the gasifier constant, at
gasification when ER >0.27.
about 0.63 m. The experimental conditions are presented in
A thick char bed was obtained by three stage air supply
Table 3.
which was beneficial to tar cracking, and the cracking reaction
Fig. 9 shows the temperature in the gasifier as a function of
was favored when the temperature increased with increasing
the biomass feeding rate. It was observed that the tempera-
ER. Fig. 8 shows the effect of change in ER on tar yield. The tar
ture increased with feeding rate. A higher value of biomass
yield dropped to 1.07 g/Nm3 at ER ¼ 0.27. When ER >0.27,
feeding rate accelerates the rate of reactions in the gasifier,
although the temperature further increased, excessively high
especially stronger oxidization reactions promoting the in-
ER resulted in a higher gas yield and a shorter gas residence, so
crease of temperature.
that the tar dropping speed gradually slowed down. It was
As Fig. 10 illustrated, the concentrations of H2 and CO in
observed that the tar yield was only 0.52 g/Nm3 at ER ¼ 0.32,
the product gas decreased with the increase in biomass
which meant that the tar yield could decrease to about 0.5 g/
feeding rate. This proved that excessively high feeding rate is
Nm3 without catalyst in the downdraft gasifier with three air-
unbeneficial for biomass gasification cracking and reforming
blown supply, while the lower heating value decreased as well
reactions, which leads to a reduction of H2 and CO content in
only 3591.6 kJ/Nm3 (Fig. 6). The tar yield was close to the value
gases. The concentration of CO2 increased gradually, which
obtained by Kramreiter et al. [13] using twin-fired downdraft
indicated that more CO2 was produced by the stronger
fixed bed. Thus, it is possible to solve the tar problem by
oxidation reactions. Besides, the shorter gas residence in
designing the structure of gasifier and changing the air dis-
reduction zone led to less CO2 consumption via C. The pyrol-
tribution way inside the gasifier.
ysis reactions of biomass were reinforced by increasing
feeding rate which resulted in a slight increase in CH4 and
3.3. Effect of feeding rate CnHm. Consequentially, increasing feeding rate trended to
decrease the lower heating value. The lower heating value
For a specified gasifier, accelerating biomass feeding rate (FR) decreased from 5455.5 kJ/Nm3 to 5253.2 kJ/Nm3 when feeding
is beneficial for increasing production capacity. However, rate changed from 5.8 kg/h to 9.3 kg/h.
excessively high feeding rate will result in a higher gas yield
and a shorter gas residence which leads to lower gas quality

Fig. 9 e Effect of biomass feeding rate on the temperatures

Fig. 8 e Effect of ER on tar yield. in the gasifier.
5632 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 9 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 5 6 2 5 e5 6 3 3
Fig. 10 e Effect of biomass feeding rate on gas composition.
Fig. 11 shows the effect of biomass feeding rate on tar yield.
As discussed above, the higher gas yield resulted in a shorter
gas residence time in high temperature zones, which was
unfavorable to tar cracking and reforming reactions, so that
the tar yield continuously increased with feeding rate. Lv et al.
[24] conducted pine wood block gasification experiment in a
self-heated downdraft gasifier using char as the catalyst and
reported that the tar yield decreased with an increase in
biomass feeding rate too. They also noticed that higher
feeding rate resulted in the decrease in hydrogen content and
lower heating value. In our previous research [4], the gasifi-
cation of herb residues in a fluidized bed was investigated
using air as gasifying agent and also found that tar yield
increased with an increase in biomass feeding rate.
4. Conclusions
This work presents the design and test results of a biomass
fixed bed gasification using a three air stage continuous
downdraft approach. Based on the tests, it was found that the
Fig. 11 e Effect of biomass feeding rate on tar yield.
three stage of air supply can yield a high and uniform tem-
perature in the oxidation and reduction zones for better tar
cracking. Use of both the air supply system and rotating grate
system avoided bridging and channeling.
By increasing ER, the combustion reactions were enhanced
to release heat, which in turn led to higher temperature in the
gasifier. For the range of ER investigated (0.18 < ER < 0.37), the
volume fraction of CO and H2 underwent the process of a fall
after a rise, whilst the volume fraction of CO2 rose after a fall.
When biomass feeding rate was 7.5 kg/h and ER was 0.25e0.27,
the product gas of the downdraft fixed bed attains a good
condition with LHV about 5400 kJ/m3 and cold gas efficiency
about 65%. As ER increased, the higher temperature also led to
higher tar cracking rate, which resulted in lower tar yield. The
tar yield as low as 0.52 g/Nm3 was achieved at ER ¼ 0.32.
Increasing biomass feeding rate led to higher biomass
consumption rates which in turn resulted in higher process
temperatures. However, excessively high feeding rate is
unbeneficial for biomass gasification cracking and reforming
reactions, which leads to a reduction of H2 and CO content in
gases and an increase in tar yield. When ER was 0.27, with an
increase of biomass feeding rate from 5.8 kg/h to 9.3 kg/h, the
low heating value decreased from 5455.5 kJ/Nm3 to 5253.2 kJ/
Nm3 and tar yield increased from 0.82 g/Nm3 to 2.78 g/Nm3.
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (China University of Mining
and Technology).
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