Syngas production from wood pellet gasification in a dual fluidized bed

Title : Syngas production from wood pellet gasification in a dual fluidized bed

Abstract:

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) has attracted increasing attention as an important pathway toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the aviation sector. Among the available production routes, biomass gasification followed by Fischer–Tropsch (FT) synthesis provides a promising approach for producing drop-in SAF from lignocellulosic feedstocks. This study investigates syngas production from wood pellets using a laboratory-scale dual fluidized bed (DFB) gasification system as the first step toward FT-based SAF production. Ultimate and proximate analyses showed that the wood pellets contained approximately 45.6 wt.% carbon with a higher heating value (HHV) of 18.36 MJ/kg, indicating their suitability as a biomass gasification feedstock. The DFB gasifier consisted of a bubbling fluidized bed gasification reactor and a fast fluidized bed combustion reactor. The system was designed and constructed in-house with a dedicated bed material circulation configuration to achieve stable operation during gasification experiments. Steam was employed as the gasification agent, while air was supplied to the combustion reactor to provide heat for the endothermic gasification reactions through circulating bed materials. Stable operation was achieved at a biomass feeding rate of 2 kg/h, a steam flow rate of 1.6 kg/h, and a gasification temperature of 800°C. The product gas was cooled for moisture removal and subsequently collected in gas sampling bags for composition analysis using gas chromatography with a thermal conductivity detector (GC-TCD). The resulting dry gas composition consisted of 26.49 vol.% H₂, 31.91 vol.% CO, 13.16 vol.% CO₂, 18.87 vol.% CH₄, and 9.57 vol.% N₂. The combined syngas (H₂ + CO) concentration reached 58.4 vol.%, demonstrating effective syngas production under the selected operating conditions. The results indicate that dual fluidized bed gasification can produce syngas with relatively high H₂ and CO concentrations, providing a promising syngas platform for subsequent gas cleaning and Fischer–Tropsch synthesis toward sustainable aviation fuel production.

Biography:

Jen-Yuan Kuo is an Associate Researcher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the National Atomic Research Institute, Taiwan. He received his Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University. His research interests focus primarily on biomass gasification, dual fluidized bed reactors and sustainable aviation fuels. At this conference, he will present his latest research on syngas production and gas composition from wood pellet gasification using a dual fluidized bed system.