Rodolfo Rodrigues

Simulação da Cogaseificação de Carvão Mineral e Casca de Arroz para a Produção de Hidrogênio

Rio Grande do Sul has the largest mineral coal deposit in the country, located in Candiota. Due to the socioenvironmental impacts linked to the direct burning of this fossil fuel, the studies of applying this biomass as an energy source were intensified. Rice husk is a biomass and an abundant agroindustrial waste in Rio Grande do Sul, which is the largest national rice producer. Currently, one of the most important routes to the cleaner use of these fuels is gasification: a process that allows the synthesis of synthetic gas (syngas) used for the production of hydrogen and products of chemical industry. Gasification allows the reduction of environmental impacts, as it is possible to reduce and capture pollutants present in the syngas. In addition, it enables the co-gasification process, which reduces CO2, NOx and SOx emissions, as it involves the co-processing of a mixture of two carbonaceous materials (biomass and fossil fuel). Fluidized bed gasifiers are generally used for co-gasification, operating at a temperature range of 700 to 900 ° C and a feed rate of 1 to 30 t / h. The use of hydrogen as fuel has a very small impact and has significant amounts of energy. In this context, using the computational simulator of industrial processes UniSim® Design, the present work proposed to analyze the operation parameters of the coal and rice husk cogassification process: the ratio between the fuels of the mixture and the gasification agentes V CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO DE CARVÃO MINERAL CRICIÚMA SC – BRASIL 29 DE MAIO A 01 DE JUNHO DE 2017 (equivalence ratio (ER) and steam / fuel (V/C)), in order to obtain a suitable gas for the production of hydrogen. The fluidized bed gasifier was represented by a Gibbs reactor. For the analysis, the total mass flow rate of fuels was fixed in 30 t/h, representing 70% of coal and 30% of rice husk. A comparison of the composition of the pure mineral coal with the blend was also made. With the increase in temperature, the contents of H2 and CO present also increase, while CO2, H2S and COS decrease. The influence of ER and V/C on syngas composition was noted. The temperature range of 700 to 900°C was obtained with the equivalence ratio between 0,21 to 0,27. The increasing ER causes H2 and CO to decrease in the syngas. The V/C ratio of 0,7 was selected because it uses a smaller amount of water vapor and a high H2/CO ratio (1,36 to 2,61) was achieved. It was concluded that by analyzing these parameters of the cogaseification process was possible to produce a suitable gas for the production of hydrogen, since the gas produced had a high amount of hydrogen. Key-Words: Co-gasification. Mineral coal. Rice husk. UniSim® Design. Hydrogen.