Assessment of biomass energy potential for SRC willow woodchips in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed gasifier

The current study investigates the short rotation coppice (SRC) gasification in a bubbling fluidized bed gasifier (BFBG) with air as gasifying medium. The thermochemical processes during combustion were studied to get better control over the air gasification and to improve its effectiveness. The combustion process of SRC was studied by different thermo-analytical techniques. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), derivative thermogravimetry (DTG), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were performed to examine the thermal degradation and heat flow rates. The product gas composition (CO, CO₂, CH₄ and H₂) produced during gasification was analyzed systematically by using an online gas analyzer and an offline GC analyzer. The influence of different equivalence ratios on product gas composition and temperature profile was investigated during SRC gasification. TG/DTG results showed degradation occur in four stages; drying, devolatilization, char combustion and ash formation. Maximum mass loss ~70% was observed in devolatilization stage and two sharp peaks at 315–500 °C in TG/DSC curves indicate the exothermic reactions. The temperature of gasifier was increased in the range of 650–850 °C along with the height of the reactor with increasing equivalent ratio (ER) from 0.25 to 0.32. The experimental results showed that with an increment in ER from 0.25 to 0.32, the average gas composition of H₂, CO, CH₄ decreased in the range of 9–6%, 16–12%, 4–3% and CO₂ concentration increased from 17 to 19% respectively. The gasifier performance parameters showed a maximum high heating value (HHV) of 4.70 MJ/m³, Low heating value (LHV) of 4.37 MJ/m³ and cold gas efficiency (CGE) of 49.63% at 0.25 ER. The ER displayed direct effect on carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) of 95.76% at 0.32 ER and tar yield reduced from 16.78 to 7.24 g/m³ with increasing ER from 0.25 to 0.32. All parametric results confirmed the reliability of the gasification process and showed a positive impact of ER on CCE and tar yield.