Pravakar Mohanty

Direct conversion of natural gas to higher hydrocarbons： A review

Direct conversion of methane to higher hydrocarbons is an effective process to solve the problem of natural gas utilization. Although remarkable progress has been achieved on the dehydro-aromatization of methane (DAM), low conversion caused by severe thermodynamic limitations, coke formation, and catalysis deactivation remain important drawbacks to the direct conversion process. Molybdenum catalysts supported on HZSM-5 type zeolite support are among the most promising catalysts. This review focuses on the aspects of direct methane conversion, in terms of catalysts containing metal and support, reaction conditions, and conversion in different types of reactors. The reaction mechanism for this catalytic process is also discussed.

Hydrogen production from steam reforming of acetic acid over Cu–Zn supported calcium aluminate

Hydrogen can be produced by catalytic steam reforming (CSR) of biomass-derived oil. Typically bio oil contains 12-14% acetic acid; therefore, this acid was chosen as model compound for reforming of biooil with the help of a Cu-Zn/Ca-Al catalyst for high yield of H(2) with low CH(4) and CO content. Calcium aluminate support was prepared by solid-solid reaction at 1350°C. X-ray diffraction indicates 12CaO·7Al(2)O(3) as major, CaA(l4)O(7) and Ca(5)A(l6)O(14) as minor phases. Cu and Zn were loaded onto the support by wet-impregnation at 10 and 1wt.%, respectively. The catalysts were characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy TEM and the surface area for both support and Cu-Zn were 10.5 and 5.8m(2)/g, respectively. CSR was carried out in a tubular fixed bed reactor (I.D.=19mm) at temperatures between 600 and 800°C with 3-g loadings and (H(2)O/acetic acid) wt. ratio of 9:1. Significantly high (80%) yield of hydrogen was obtained over Cu-Zn/Ca-Al catalyst, as incorporation of Zn enhanced the H(2) yield by reducing deactivation of the catalyst. The coke formation on the support (Ca-12/Al-7) surface was negligible due to the presence of excess oxygen in the 12CaO·7Al(2)O(3) phase.

Intermediate pyrolysis of agro-industrial biomasses in bench-scale pyrolyser: Product yields and its characterization.

Pyrolysis of woody biomass, agro-residues and seed was carried out at 500 ± 10 °C in a fixed bed pyrolyser. Bio-oil yield was found varying from 20.5% to 47.5%, whereas the biochar and pyrolysis gas ranged from 27.5% to 40% and 24.5% to 40.5%, respectively. Pyrolysis gas was measured for flame temperature along with CO, CO2, H2, CH4 and other gases composition. HHV of biochar (29.4 MJ/kg) and pyrolitic gas (8.6 MJ/kg) of woody biomass was higher analogous to sub-bituminous coal and steam gasification based producer gas respectively, whereas HHV of bio-oil obtained from seed (25.6 MJ/kg) was significantly more than husks, shells and straws. TGA-DTG studies showed the husks as potential source for the pyrolysis. Bio-oils as a major by-product of intermediate pyrolysis have several applications like substitute of furnace oil, extraction of fine chemicals, whereas biochar as a soil amendment for enhancing soil fertility and gases for thermal application.

Air gasification of rice husk in bubbling fluidized bed reactor with bed heating by conventional charcoal.

An experimental study of air gasification of rice husk was conducted in a bench-scale fluidized bed gasifier (FBG) having 210 mm diameter and 1600 mm height. Heating of sand bed material was performed using conventional charcoal fuel. Different operating conditions like bed temperature, feeding rate and equivalence ratio (ER) varied in the range of 750-850 °C, 25-31.3 kg/h, and 0.3-0.38, respectively. Flow rate of air was kept constant (37 m(3)/h) during FBG experiments. The carbon conversion efficiencies (CCE), cold gas efficiency, and thermal efficiency were evaluated, where maximum CCE was found as 91%. By increasing ER, the carbon conversion efficiency was decreased. Drastic reduction in electric consumption for initial heating of gasifier bed with charcoal compared to ceramic heater was ∼45%. Hence rice husk is found as a potential candidate to use directly (without any processing) in FBG as an alternative renewable energy source from agricultural field.

Cr-free Co-Cu/SBA-15 catalysts for hydrogenation of biomass-derived α-, β-unsaturated aldehyde to alcohol

Abstract Cr-free bi-metallic SBA-15-supported Co–Cu catalysts were examined in the conversion of biomass-derived α-, β-unsaturated aldehyde (furfural) to value-added chemical furfuryl alcohol (FOL). Co–Cu/SBA-15 catalysts with a fixed Cu loading of 10 wt% and varying Co loadings (2.5, 5, and 10 wt%) were prepared by the impregnation method. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction, N 2 sorption, H 2 temperature-programmed reduction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, CO chemisorption, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The influence of different reaction parameters such as temperature, pressure, catalyst dosage, and furfural concentration on the catalyst performance was evaluated. Relative to catalysts supported on amorphous silica, the current SBA-15-supported Co–Cu catalysts displayed higher performance, attaining a furfural conversion of 99% and furfuryl alcohol selectivity of 80%. The catalytic reactions were conducted in a 100-mL autoclave at 170 °C and 2 MPa H 2 pressure for 4 h.

Thermal degradation and kinetic study for different waste/rejected plastic materials

A kinetic analysis based on thermal decomposition of rejected polypropylene, plastic film and plastic pellets collected from different industrial outlet has been carried out. Non-isothermal experiments using different heating rates of 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 °C min−1 have been performed from ambient to 700 °C in a thermo-balance with the objective of determining the kinetic parameters. The values of activation energy and frequency factor were found to be in the range of 107–322 kJ/mol, 85–331 kJ/mol, 140–375 kJ/mol and 3.49E+07–4.74E+22 min−1, 3.52E+06–2.88E+22min−1, 7.28E+13–1.17E+25 min−1 for rejected polypropylene, plastic film and plastic pellets, respectively, by Coats-Redfern and Ozawa methods including different models. Kissinger method, a model free analysis is also adopted to find the kinetic parameters. Activation energy and frequency factor were found to be 108 kJ/mol, 98 kJ/mol, 132 kJ/mol and 6.89E+03, 2.12E+02, 8.06E+05 min−1 for rejected polypropylene, plastic film and plastic pellets, respectively, by using the Kissinger method.

An Overview of Biomass Gasification

The emission of greenhouse gases in the environment in order to satisfy the demand for electricity and fuel has raised severe climate change issues in various parts of the world. Thus, switching from conventional to renewable power sources has become necessary. Biomass a renewable energy source has the potential of becoming an alternative to the conventional energy sources. Gasification is a thermochemical process that converts waste biomass into a gaseous product known as a syngas and provides environment-friendly waste disposal. Synthesis gas produced through biomass gasification process can be further utilized for power generation or various thermal applications. This chapter discusses various conventional gasification systems existing for biomass gasification along with new technological development. It also delivers an assessment of the impacts of fundamental and interrelating process parameters such as reactor temperature, equivalence ratio, biomass particle size, bed material, etc. on gasification process. Further, a section on various producer gas cleaning technologies to make syngas suitable for power generation applications is also included in this chapter.

Groundnut shell gasification performance in a fluidized bed gasifier with bubbling air as gasification medium

ABSTRACT This work was focused on finding the groundnut shell (GNS) gasification performance in a fluidized bed gasifier with bubbling air as gasification medium. GNS in powder form (a mixture of different particle size as given in table 8 in the article) was gasified using naturally available river sand as bed material, top of the bed feeding, conventional charcoal as bed heating medium, and two cyclones for proper cleaning and cooling the product gas. Experiments were performed using different operating conditions such as equivalence ratio (ER) between 0.29 and 0.33, bed temperature between 650°C and 800°C, and feedstock feeding rate between 36 and 31.7 kg/h. Different parameters were evaluated to study the gasifier performance such as gas yield, cold gas efficiency, carbon conversion efficiency (CCE), and high heating value. The most suitable ER value was found to be 0.31, giving the most stable bed temperature profile at 714.4°C with 5–10% fluctuation. Cold gas efficiency and CCE at optimal ER of 0.31 was found to be 71.8% and 91%, respectively. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT