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Cleaning up Gasification Producer Gas for Use in an IC Engine
1. Cleaning Up Gasification Producer
Gas for Use in an IC Engine
Presented April 25th, 2012
NAWTEC 20
2. Overview
• Gasification / IC Engines
• The Conditioning Challenge
• Technical Approach
• Results / Lessons Learned
3. Gasification
• Power via Gasification
– Drivers
• Closing landfills
• Increased difficulty obtaining new landfill
permits
• Tipping Fees increasing
• Green Power
– Convert opportunity fuel sources to energy
(e.g. MSW,RDF)
• Reduces material to a landfill by 90% volume
4. Internal Combustion (IC) Engines
• Compact Power and
Heat Generation
• Relatively Fast
Fabrication Cycle
• Easy to Monetize
Under a Lease
Option
5. The Challenge?
• IC Engines Need a Conditioned Gas Source
(representative numbers, based on 10 kW-hr
of power generated)
– Particulate Matter (PM) <50 mg (under 3 microns)
– Acid Gas / Halogens <20 mg
– Oxides of Sulfur <200 mg
– Tar Dewpoint: 5 C below inlet gas temperature
– Minimal Heavy Metal Carryover
6. Particulate Matter
PM2.5
Human Hair <2.5 micron
70 micron
PM10
<10 micron
Fine Beach Sand
90 micron
7. Acid Gases / Halogens
• HCl and traces of HF produced in the
combustion of biomass fuels that may contain
Chlorine:
– Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
– Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) – plastics, pvc,
etc.
• HCl is water soluble and can be wet scrubbed
• Hydrochloric Acid formed in the presence of
moisture
8. Sulfur
– Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S)
• formed from sulfur compounds found in MSW, and RDF
• vapor phase in the syngas
• relatively high solubility in water, can be scrubbed
• will oxidize into SO2 in the presence of oxygen, temperature
– Carbonyl Sulfide (COS)
• formed from sulfur compounds found in MSW, and RDF
• vapor phase in the syngas
• not very soluble in water
• undesirable properties-can spontaneously combust
9. Tar Dewpoint
• Syngas is rich in
trace long chain
hydrocarbons
• Small temperature
reductions = Tar
Precipitation
19. WESP-2F Technology
• WESP Field #2
– PM/PM10/PM2.5 and fine acid particle removal
– Upflow demisting design
20. WESP-2F Technology
• Control / Pump Skid
– Dual pumps for uptime guarantee
– Pre-pipe / pre-wired for easy install
– Single interface for complete
system control
21. Results
• WESP-2F Test Unit
» 1600 Nm3/hr delivered at 30
C
• PM <30-40 mg per 10kW-hr
• Halogens <2 mg per 10 kW-hr
• Sulfur <200 mg per 10 kW-hr
excluding COS
• Tar Dewpoint 20 C
• Gas Value 0.85 to 1.0 kW-hr
per Nm3/hr
• Ongoing engineering tests with
commercial gasifier
–WESP-2F Test Unit at Gasifier Location
22. Lessons Learned
• Separation of Tar from
Scrubbing Solution
• Foaming
• COS is Challenging
• Calorific Energy in
Treated Gas Marginal
for IC Engine
• Bio-Based Chemicals?
Gasification: Reacting the raw material, such as house waste, or compost at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. The resulting gas mixture is called synthesis gas or syngas and is itself a fuel. Gasification is a method for extracting energy from many different types of organic materials. The advantage of gasification is that using the syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot's rule is higher or not applicable.
