Managing biomass blends in gasification reactors

Stoichiometric modelling of gasification reactors for

lignocellulosic residues

Carlos-Andrés Muñoz-Huerta 1, Gladys Jiménez-García 2, Luis Germán Hernández-Pérez 3,

Rafael Huirache-Acuña 1, Fabricio Nápoles-Rivera 1, Rafael Maya-Yescas 1, *

1
Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo,
Ciudad Universitaria, 58030, Morelia, Michoacán de Ocampo, México
2
Academia de Ingeniería Biomédica, Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Pátzcuaro, Tecnológico
Nacional de México, Av. Tecnológico #1, 58660, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán de Ocampo, México
3
Aspen Technologies
* Corresponding author: rafael.maya.yescas@umich.mx

Gasification of biomass is one of the main sources of syngas, which is the raw material for
many useful materials and fuels; therefore, the gasification reactor could be considered as
the platform of a biomass biorefinery. One of the cheapest sources of biomass are the
urban lignocellulosic residues, whose accumulation provokes important problems in
medium and large size cities. Among these residues, there are lots of useful residues for
gasification, for example citric fruits peel, sawdust, cane bagasse, corn cob, grass and
other pruning wastes, thermoplastics and many more. Each one of these residues
contains different amounts of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulphur and ashes, and
different amounts of moisture; therefore, it would be impossible to control all the syngas
quality indices after gasification of blends of these residues. The selection of downstream
processes depends on several factors, among them the syngas composition and quality.
The quality assessment is defined by some indices and ratios, such as the (H 2/CO) ratio
and the H2S content. In this work, based on the empiric formulae of each lignocellulosic
residue and the use of the generalised stoichiometry technique, a strategy to blend
available residues with the objective of assess quality indices is presented; its
implementation offers, simultaneously, the opportunity to minimise the external supply of
two important reactants: carbon dioxide and steam.

1. Introduction
This section presents the theoretical background used in the strategy for blending the
lignocellulosic residues considered as substrates for gasification. The current strategy of
design of gasification based biorefineries is revised in subsection 1.1. Subsection 1.2
deals with the basis to determine empirical formulae of the residues and the stoichiometry
necessary for the balancing of mass in the gasification reactor. Then, subsection 1.3 gives
the theoretical basis to develop a mathematical strategy useful in the decision-making
path, which allows to choose the amounts of each available residue in each blend used as
reactor fed. Finally, subsection 1.4 suggests what kinds of processes could be
downstream, depending on the quality assessment of the produced syngas.

1.1. Current strategies of design

A gasification reactor is a good candidate to be the heart of a 3 rd generation integrated
biorefinery. This kind of integrated biorefineries use multiple feedstocks to produce various
chemical materials, power, and biofuels. Typically, all the electricity or a fraction of the
power generated by a refinery can be used for its operation, and the rest of the energy or
products will be considered for the commercial enterprise (Nizami et al., 2017).

In recent years, centralization into biorefineries as part of general trends towards

increasing flexibility, efficiency and productivity is a growing used approach to offset the
costs of biosolids management. Through economy of scale, it can provide access to new
and advanced technologies for small plants that may not be feasible on their own (Kasirga,
2021). Hence, 3rd generation biorefineries are presented as good alternatives for the use of
biomass; additionally, methodologies to support biorefinery synthesis are necessary to
estimate design parameters for production lines, energetic and economic analysis
(Romero-Perez et al., 2021).

There are many kinds of biorefineries, classified by the platform they use and their
potential products (Nizami et al., 2017). This work is focused on “Gasification
Biorefineries”, which main internal products are syngas and fuel gas, and products for sale
are hydrogen, liquid hydrocarbons, methanol and energy. Waste biorefinery technologies
are based on mainly three pathways: thermochemical, physicochemical and biochemical
processes, trying to provide cost-effective technologies and promising solutions for both,
the increasing energy demands and the sustainable waste management in the developing
countries. In this context, gasification reactors are preferred over pyrolysis and incineration
technologies because of the higher achieved conversions at similar temperatures, around
1000° C (Gabbar and Aboughaly, 2021). An important element of the regional biosolids
program is developing a vision to encounter the dynamic nature of uncertainties
associated with regulations, market availability, public acceptance, emerging
contaminants, and potential technological disruptions by providing resilient solutions over
the next decades (Kasirga, 2021). Similarly, it has been considered the evaluation based
on environmental impact assessment and comparison of technical parameters for
estimating the potential effects of different biorefinery designs (e.g. Meramo-Hurtado et al.,
2020).
In order to fulfil this set of requirements, in this work a strategy for the design of the
gasification reactor is proposed, which is based on the analysis of the steady-state mass
balance.

1.2. Reactions stoichiometry and steady-state mass balances

After the assessment of economic feasibility, the first step in the conceptual design of a
chemical process is the selection of the chemical reactor. This step consists of a set of
decisions, which start considering the possible stoichiometry of the reactions taking place
(Douglas, 1986; Ortiz-Sánchez and Cardona-Alzate, 2022). As it was pointed out, currently
there are not reports about gasification reactors designed using the reactions’
stoichiometry; therefore, there is opportunity to develop stoichiometry of gasification
reactions based on the generalised stoichiometry technique (Cerro et al., 2003; Reklaitis,
1983). The first step to develop this technique is the proposition of empiric formulas for the
different residues/substrates to be fed to the gasifier. Although some incipient work about
this approach can be found in literature (e.g. Table 1 in Meramo-Hurtado et al., 2020),
authors have not used the empiric formulas to develop possible stoichiometry.

So, in this work, development of the stoichiometry required to model the reactor as a
process unit (Cerro et al., 2003; Reklaitis, 1983) is proposed as the first step of the design
methodology.

1.3. Design of the lignocellulosic residues blend

The logistics of feedstock availability, production, and usage need to be cautiously planned
for the success of integrated biorefineries for residues. In parallel, the recovery
technologies will even need to be integrated in a way that they are technically and
economically feasible (Nizami et al., 2017). Therefore, it is very convenient to have the
ability of formulate different blends of residues, looking to recover the necessary carbon
and water necessary for the gasification reactor. As it has been observed, the main two
operating conditions that increase the (H2/CO) ratio, proportionally, are the temperature
and the steam availability in the gasification reactor (Shafiq et al., 2021).

If only one residue is supplied to the gasifier, it is highly probable that addition of water-
steam or high pure carbon dioxide will be required. Since each residue contains different
amounts of humidity and exhibits different empirical formulae, it is possible to supply the
water needed for one residue blending it with another or other residues; the same concept
is applied to the carbon requirements.

1.4. Some possible downstream processes

Economic indicators resulting from the analysis of the gasification and downstream
processes presented in (Romero-Perez et al., 2021), permit to compare that in case of
several production options, and making final investment decisions, hydrogen is the highest
value product. Therefore, for high hydrogen ratios, (H2/CO) > 3, hydrogen production is the
recommended downstream process.

Syngas containing intermedium hydrogen ratios, 3 > (H2/CO) > 2, could be upgraded to
liquid hydrocarbon fuels via the Fischer–Tropsch chemical process (Jiménez-García and
Maya-Yescas, 2015; Gabbar and Aboughaly, 2021). Using cobalt as catalyst to convert
syngas to liquid hydrocarbon fuels, obtains blends of linear paraffins and linear 1-olephins
that have higher market value and can be used as combustible fuels for domestic stoves
and ignition engines (Díaz-Trujillo et al., 2018).

If hydrogen content in the syngas is low, (H 2/CO) < 2, it could be considered a possible
fuel to support the biorefinery internal energy requirements.

2. Methodology and numerical strategy

Firstly, composition of each residue to be considered as gasification feedstock should be
known, either from literature or from laboratory.

2.1. Selection of residues and empirical formulas

2.2. Numerical solution and optimisation

3. Results and discussion

4. Conclusions

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