Biomass gasification in a novel 50kWth indirectly heated bubbling fluidized bed steam reformer

In the global chase towards sustainability and cleaner ways of generating power, the utilization of biomass for clean energy conversion process has become increasingly interesting as biomass is potentially a CO2-neutral energy source. Among the processes known to produce power, gasification represents an attractive and versatile technology to convert wide variety of biomass into product gas mainly composed by CO, H2, CO2, H2O and CH4, that can be used for (combined) heat and power (CHP) production, transportation fuels and chemicals. For small to medium scale biomass gasification, fluidized bed technology is attractive: the process takes place in a bed of small particles fluidised by a suitable gasification medium and the very good gas-solid mixing ensures temperature uniformity through the bed and leads to an excellent mass and heat transfer. In indirectly heated gasification, also known as second generation or allothermal gasification, the heat needed for the desired reactions is provided by ex-situ oxidation reactions and this leads to a higher quality product.