Pierpaolo Iovane

Steam gasification of waste tyre: Influence of process temperature on yield and product composition

An experimental survey of waste tyre gasification with steam as oxidizing agent has been conducted in a continuous bench scale reactor, with the aim of studying the influence of the process temperature on the yield and the composition of the products; the tests have been performed at three different temperatures, in the range of 850-1000°C, holding all the other operational parameters (pressure, carrier gas flow, solid residence time). The experimental results show that the process seems promising in view of obtaining a good quality syngas, indicating that a higher temperature results in a higher syngas production (86 wt%) and a lower char yield, due to an enhancement of the solid-gas phase reactions with the temperature. Higher temperatures clearly result in higher hydrogen concentrations: the hydrogen content rapidly increases, attaining values higher than 65% v/v, while methane and ethylene gradually decrease over the range of the temperatures; carbon monoxide and dioxide instead, after an initial increase, show a nearly constant concentration at 1000°C. Furthermore, in regards to the elemental composition of the synthesis gas, as the temperature increases, the carbon content continuously decreases, while the oxygen content increases; the hydrogen, being the main component of the gas fraction and having a small atomic weight, is responsible for the progressive reduction of the gas density at higher temperature.

Steam gasification of refuse-derived fuel in a rotary kiln pilot plant: Experimental tests

Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) steam gasification tests were performed in a rotary kiln pilot plant. The gas features were evaluated by varying the feeding ratio (FR), in the range 0.4-2.67, at a constant temperature equal to 850 °C. Several experimental tests were carried out in order to evaluate the best values for the main operating variables: kiln temperature, gas and solid residence time, etc., before evaluating the effect of the FR increase on the gas energy content and composition. Results show that the gas energy content decreases as the FR increases and, in the range of the FR studied, it achieves the maximum for FR=0.4, which corresponds to a volumetric gas composition of H2=59.1 %vv, CO=16.8 %v/v, CO2=20.1 %v/v, CH4=3 %v/v (not considering N2) and the highest lower heating value (LHV) equal to 16 MJ kggas -1 is obtained.

Biomethane production by biogas with polymeric membrane module

Abstract Biogas is one of the most important biofuels that can be produced by biomass owing to its simple and consolidated process. Until the past decade it was used for power production, but because of the direction of European Union policy issues that have drawn attention to the possibilities offered by upgrading biogas to biomethane, currently there are the important conditions for the dynamic growth of this industry. The aim of this chapter is to underline the end uses of biogas compared with its upgrade, with a focus on the gains and limitations of using polymeric membranes for biomethane purification.