Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255

www.fuelfirst.com

Some process fundamentals of biomass gasification in dual fluidized bed

Takahiro Murakami, Guangwen Xu *, Toshiyuki Suda, Yoshiaki Matsuzawa,
Hidehisa Tani, Toshiro Fujimori
Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd., Sin-nakahara-cho 1, Isogo-ku, Yokohama 235-8501, Japan

Received 18 December 2005; received in revised form 28 April 2006; accepted 24 May 2006
Available online 23 June 2006

Abstract

The dual fluidised bed gasification technology is prospective because it produces high caloric product gas free of N2 dilution
even when air is used to generate the gasification-required endothermic heat via in situ combustion. This study is devoted to providing
the necessary process fundamentals for development of a bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) biomass gasifier coupled to a pneumatic trans-
ported riser (PTR) char combustor. In a steam-blown fluidized bed of silica sand, gasification of 1.0 g biomass, a kind of dried coffee
grounds containing about 10 wt.% water, in batch format clarified first the characteristics of fuel pyrolysis (at 1073 K) under the
conditions simulating that prevailing in the gasifier intended to develop. The result shown that via pyrolysis more than 60% of fuel
carbon and up to 75% of fuel mass could be converted into product gas, while the simultaneously formed char was about 22% of fuel
mass. With all of these data as the known input, a process simulation using the software package ASPEN then revealed that the
considered dual bed gasification plant, i.e. a BFB gasifier + a PTR combustor, is able to sustain its independent heat and mass balances
to allow cold gas efficiencies higher than 75%, given that the fuel has suitable water contents and the heat carried with the product gas
from the gasifier and with the flue gas from the char combustor is efficiently recovered inside the plant. In a dual fluidized bed pilot
gasification facility simulating the gasification plant for development, the article finally demonstrated experimentally that the necessary
reaction time for fuel, i.e. the explicit residence time of fuel particles inside the BFB gasifier computed according to a plug granular flow
assumption, can be lower than 160 s. The results shown that varying the residence time from 160 to 1200 s only slightly increased the
gasification efficiency, but the reaction time available in the PTR, say, about 3 s in our case, was too short to assure the finish even
of fuel pyrolysis.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Biomass; Coffee grounds; Dual fluidized bed gasification

1. Introduction tant not only to regulation of the nation’s CO2 emission

In face of the global warming and climate change prob-
lems, the utilization of biomass as an alternative of fossil
fuels has been on its boom for many years. To Japan, bio-
mass is an indispensable supplementary guard of the
nation’s energy safe supply because the nation nearly com-
pletely relies on imported oils, coals and gases. Statistics
anticipated that the usable biomass per year in Japan might
amount to 26 million kiloliter crude oils of heat equivalence
[1]. The efficient use of this energy resource is surely impor-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 45 759 2867; fax: +81 45 759 2210.
E-mail address: gwxu@home.ipe.ac.cn (G. Xu).
but also to her energy diversification.
Since 2003, The New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO), Japan, had spon-
sored a three-year technical program to develop an
advanced upgrading and pyrolytic gasification system for
high-moisture biomass fuels, such as various wet wastes
from beverage and food industries. The technical system
consists of two parts, a reforming drier and a pyrolytic gas-
ification plant. The drier works to reduce the water content
of the wet biomass fuel to some reasonable values and to
upgrade the fuel through reforming some of its fats to
improve the fuel’s thermal properties, such as O/C ratio,
heating value and so on [2]. For the research program

0016-2361/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2006.05.025
 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
the considered model biomass is coffee grounds containing
water higher than 65 wt.%. This model fuel not only typi-
fies the high-moisture bio-wastes like tea grounds, soy
sauce lees, vinegar lees and bagasse which are concentrated
already, but has also a total production of up to 30 thou-
sand tons per year in Japan. Instead of disposal or combus-
tion for heat, many beverage works are thus interested with
conversion of such fuels into middle-caloric gases to lower
the works’ natural gas consumptions.
The devised pyrolytic gasification plant is schematically
illustrated in Fig. 1. It is a bubbling fluidized bed (BFB)
gasifier coupled to a pneumatic transported riser (PTR)
char combustor. As shown in the plot, the lower end of
the PTR combustor is immersed into the particle bed (or
particle bulk) of the BFB gasifier, and the riser itself is
seated around the central vertical line of the BFB gasifier.
Air nozzles extended to the downside entrance of the
PTR supply air to the combustor. This airflow not only
provides the necessary oxidant for char combustion but
catches also the particles from the BFB to let them move
into the PTR. Steam, fed to the bottom of the BFB, is
the usually employed gasification reagent. The gasifier
needs thus an external heat resource, which is the high-
temperature heat carrier particles, commonly sand at about
1173 K, circulated from the PTR.
The working procedure of the gasification plant is as fol-
lows. Biomass fuel is fed to the BFB gasifier, wherein it is
pyrolyzed and gasified through interactions with steam
and the high-temperature heat carrier particles (i.e. sand)
coming from the PTR combustor. The gaseous product
of fuel pyrolysis/gasification (including tars) independently
exhausts from the gasifier, whereas the unreacted char
remains in the gasifier to move with the heat carrier parti-
cles. The amount of unreacted char is a function of gasifi-
cation conditions, such as temperature, fuel particle
residence time in the BFB, etc. With progress of fuel pyro-
lysis and gasification the temperature of the heat carrier
particles has to decrease, but the particles, with char
blended, could quickly reach the jetted air to allow them
to be conveyed into the PTR. There, the expose of the
Combustion
exhaust gas
Pneumatic Fine powder
transported bed (ash) Gasification
char combustor
gas
Biomass Fine powder
Bubbling (ash)
fluidized bed
gasifier
Air
Steam
Fig. 1. Conception of the devised pyrolytic gasification plant.
245
unreacted char to air leads to char combustion and thereby
to heat up the heat carrier particles again. The heated par-
ticles are in turn separated from the flue gas in the PTR
cyclone and recirculated into the BFB gasifier to serve con-
tinuously the fuel pyrolysis and gasification reactions by
providing them the needed endothermic heat.
Therefore, the distinctive advantage of the gasification
plant is its separation of combustion exhaust from gasifica-
tion gas product. This, similar to all the other dual bed
gasification processes (such as FICFB [3]), allows the
product gas to have high caloric values and low intake of
inert gases (usually N2 and CO2). Furthermore, the quoted
gasification plant has a more compact design than the other
commonly encountered dual bed gasification assembles. In
the other cases the char combustor and fuel gasifier
generally stand separately [3,4], which incurs surely more
heat loss and requires a bigger space to construct the
plant.
Controlling both particle circulation and fuel mass and
heat partitions between the BFB gasifier and PTR char
combustor is critical to the devised gasification plant and
its implicated technology. While the circulation rate of heat
carrier particles determines if it is possible to carry the
required endothermic heat from the PTR combustor to
BFB gasifier, the partitions of fuel’s mass and heat specifies
if suitable exothermic heat can be generated in the combus-
tor and how high the available gasification efficiency can
be. Too less char from the BFB to PTR means insufficient
heat supply to the fuel pyrolysis/gasification reactions so
that the temperatures of the whole system will become
gradually lower and unstable with operation. On the con-
trary, if the char moved to the PTR combustor is too
many, there must be an excessive heat production inside
the combustor to cause its temperature out of control.
Thus, the available gas production (or gasification) effi-
ciency via the plant is subject to the quoted char partition
between the gasifier and combustor, although the efficiency
varies as well with fuel’s water content.
The present article is about the proposed gasification
plant and intends to provide a few relative process funda-
mentals. In a batch fluidized bed gasifier it clarified first
the available C and H conversions, product partition char-
acteristics and gas composition at the end of fuel pyrolysis
in a steam atmosphere. Using these data as the known
input, a process simulation with ASPEN was in turn con-
ducted to demonstrate the possibly available efficiencies
in the devised gasification plant for fuels, here coffee
grounds, containing water of up to 45 wt.%. This resulted
in clarification of the suitable fuel water contents that
assure the desired gasification efficiency, such as over
75%. Finally, a few gasification tests in a 5 kg/h pilot dual
fluidised bed gasification facility simulating the gasification
plant illustrated in Fig. 1 were carried out to identify the
dependence of fuel conversion on reaction time of fuel,
i.e. on the fuel particle residence time inside the gasifier,
so as to provide the first basis for designs of the gasification
reactor.
246 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255

2. Methodology Table 1
Properties of coffee grounds
2.1. Batch fluidized bed gasifier No. 1 No. 2
Proximate (wet-wt.%)
Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of the used lab-scale Moisture 10.5 9.3
bubbling fluidized bed gasifier. As detailed in Xu et al. VM 71.8 69.4
FC 16.7 19.3
[5], the bed was made of quartz glass, and was 80 mm in Ash 1.0 2.0
i.d. and 1200 mm high. A golden furnace heated the bed,
Ultimate (db-wt.%)
with temperatures inside the bed measured at 250, 400,
C 52.97 54.9
700 and 1100 mm above the bed distributor (a sintered por- H 6.51 6.12
ous plate). Via batch gasification test in this gasifier we N 2.80 3.07
measured the available C and H conversions and the corre- S 0.05 0.01
sponding product distribution at the end of fuel pyrolysis O 36.62 33.62
HHV (kcal/kg-db) 5260 5682
in a steam atmosphere. As for the biomass gasification
Bulk density (kg/m3) Around 350
plant conceptualised in Fig. 1, the fuel pyrolysis may dom- Particle size <2.0 mm
inate the available gasification efficiency. The facts that
biomass fuel is abundant in volatile matters and the kinetic
rate of fuel pyrolysis is much quicker than that of char
steam gasification should be the causes. Meanwhile, the hydrocarbons of up to C3H8) and the total moles of
product distribution of biomass pyrolysis is closely depen- released C and H.
dent on measurement methods, such as heating device, The tested biomass fuel was dry coffee grounds obtained
because different methods may cause different heating rates from drying/upgrading high-moisture coffee grounds with
to fuel particles. Choosing the bubbling fluidized bed gas- water content over 65 wt.% according to the technology
ifier illustrated in Fig. 2 expected to make the measured of slurry dewatering in kerosene [2]. This article was
fuel pyrolysis characteristics representative of what actually involved with two types of dry coffee grounds (received
occurs in the gasifier conceptualised in Fig. 1. from another company at different time). Table 1 sum-
The test procedure was as follows. After the gasifier was marizes their properties determined with proximate and
set to the desired conditions, one gram of fuel (fuel no. 2 in ultimate analyses. We can see that both the fuels were
Table 2) was dropped into the fluidized bed of silica sand similarly rich in oxygen and contained water of about
particles to start the gasification reactions. The sand had 10 wt.% and volatiles of about 70 wt.%. Nonetheless, slight
a Sauter mean diameter of 190 lm, and the loaded amount differences existed in compositions, which might be due to
in the bed was 3.2 kg. This led to a fluidized particle bed of some different drying/upgrading conditions applied to
500–550 mm high under a steam feed (473 K) of 5.6 g/min them. The fuel no. 2 was used for the batch gasification test
and a N2 tracer gas flux of 4.0 LN/min. The gas from the specified above.
reactor, which was first dedusted, filtered and dried at the
reactor exit, was sampled with gas bags at a time interval 2.2. Process simulation
of 15 s. The sampled gas was then analysed in a micro
gas chromatograph for its molar composition. Referring The software package used was ASPEN plus. In order
further to the N2 tracer flux, the measurement determined to simulate the chemical steps occurring in the gasification
also the moles of various gaseous species (H2, CO, CO2 and plant sketched in Fig. 1, a process model highlighted in
Fig. 3 was constructed. The model consists of two basic
modules, the fuel pyrolytic gasification module and char
coffee grounds combustion module. The gasification module is further
T
T made of a fuel pyrolyzer, a char gasifier and a gas/tar refor-
P filter T : thermocouple mer. In actual gasification plant all these reactors should be
P : pressure sensor integrated together, which have thus the same output tem-
cyclone perature in Fig. 3. Unreacted char from the char gasifier is
completely sent to the char combustor of the combustion
T module, whereinto air preheated with hot product gas is
IDF
steam generator supplied to provide oxygen for combustion. Between the
two modules heat carrier particles (silica sand) are circu-
bag filter
lated. Independent exhausts are available to both the refor-
Gas mer and char combustor. Thus, the model simulated
P T analyzer
pump N
exactly the process features implicated in Fig. 1.
2
This article considered only the temperatures of 1173 K
Fig. 2. A schematic diagram of the lab-scale bubbling fluidized bed and 1073 K for the combustion and gasification modules,
gasifier. respectively. On this basis Fig. 3 shows also how the heat
 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
Gasification air water
Tm 1073 K
Product gas
573K
Ta
373 K Reformer
water+steam
Ts1 1073 K cyclone 1
heat
Gasifier
circulated
773K 1073 K
sand
Pyrolyzer
fuel
Combustion air, Ta
Ts1 auxil. fuel
Combustor
flue gas
423K 1173 K
cyclone 2
373K
water+steam
Fig. 3. A process model simulating the gasification plant sketched in
Fig. 1.
carried with hot flue gas (1173 K) and hot product gas
(1073 K) is recovered in the modelling. It was supposed
that the virgin product gas from the reformer undergoes
a heat exchange first with water supplied for the gasifier.
This reduces the gas’ temperature to an intermediate value
of Tm (773 K) and also converts the water into a water-
steam mixture of 373 K (under 1.0 atm). The remaining
usable heat with the product gas, i.e. the enthalpy between
Tm and its exhaust temperature of 573 K, is then consumed
in heating the air fed to the char combustor by raising the
airflow’s temperature to Ta. In another heat exchanger, the
heat from the flue gas converts further the aforementioned
water-steam mixture into a steam stream of Ts1. The flue
gas itself approaches in turn its final exhaust temperature
of 423 K. In case Ts1 is lower than 773 K, further heating
the steam stream to 773 K, the desired temperature of
gasification reagent, was conducted. In the depicted heat
network the temperatures Ta and Tm are two dependent
variables. Another dependent variable is the amount of
circulated silica sand. Because the temperature difference
between the combustion and gasification modules is fixed
at 100 K, the circulated particle amount has to vary with
the amount and composition of fuel feed. Herein, however,
only the fuel’s water content is varied (based on coffee
grounds no. 2 in Table 1), while the fuel amount (wet-base)
remains in a constant.
Fig. 4 summarizes the considered chemical reactions,
with as well their accompanying enthalpy variations, for
each processor of the process model. In the char gasifier,
both steam and CO2 gasifications were considered. The ref-
ormation of tars and CH4 (representative of CmHn) is sug-
gested to occur only in the reformer. In the reformer water
gas shift (WGS) reaction was supposed to be in its equilib-
rium state, noting that the gasification module has temper-
atures over 973 K. The char combustion was thought to
247
Gasification
Pyrolyzer
Fuel → Char + H2 + CO + + Tars, ΔH 0298 > 0,
( ΔH 0298 : Estimated from reaction’s enthalpy balance)
Water → Steam ΔH 0298 > 0
Gasifier
Char + H2O → CO + H2 ΔH 0298 = 131 kJ/mol
Char + CO2 → 2CO ΔH 0298 = 172 kJ/mol
1073 K
Reformer
CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 ΔH 0298 = −41 kJ/mol
CH4 + H2 O → CO + 3H2 ΔH 0298 = 206 kJ/mol
Tar + H2O → aCO + bH2 ΔH 0298 > 0, Estimated.
Combustion
1173 K
Combustor
Char + 1/2O2 → CO ΔH 0298 = −111 kJ/mol
CO + 1/2O2 → CO2 ΔH 0298 = −284 kJ/mol
Fuel + aO2 → bH2O + cCO2 ΔH 0298 , Based on HHV
Fig. 4. Considered reactions in process simulation.
occur in two successive steps, first into CO and then into
CO2 via oxidizing the formed CO.
At this stage, we calculated merely the heat and mass
balance of the whole system so as to demonstrate the pos-
sibly available cold gas efficiency and C and H conversions
for fuels with various different water contents. The cold gas
efficiency refers to a ratio of HHVs between the produced
gas and treated fuel. For the calculation it was assumed
that the fuel fed into the pyrolyzer is completely pyrolyzed
to form gas, tars and char according to the product
percentage identified in the preceding batch fluidised bed
gasification test (the Section 2.1). Thus, increasing the fuel
water content has to decrease the available amounts of dry
fuel and the formed char. This would lead the char com-
bustion to be unable to provide enough exothermal heat
to maintain the system’s temperature. Once this occurs,
an auxiliary fuel feed (with the same water content as that
of the fuel fed to the gasifier) is directed to the char com-
bustor so that the burning of this fuel can compensate
for the insufficient heat.
Consequently, the computation was iteratively per-
formed to determine the percents of gasified char (the left
being combusted) or the necessarily required auxiliary fuel
feed for char combustor. This in turn determines the circu-
lated heat carrier particle amount and the temperatures Tm
and Ta. It was suggested that 99% of the tars from pyrolysis
is reformed, whereas reformation of CmHn was not consid-
ered. In addition, no kinetic limitation was applied to all
reactions (such as char combustion and gasification). The
needed enthalpy changes for reactions of fuel pyrolysis
and tar reformation were estimated as the enthalpy differ-
ence between their reaction products and reactants. In
these estimations the standard enthalpy of tars was roughly
determined according to the tars’ element composition
248 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
obtained from element analysis (will be shown in the
Section 3).
2.3. Pilot dual fluidised bed gasification facility
Fig. 5 shows a sketch of the pilot dual fluidized bed gas-
ification facility adopted to clarify the necessarily entailed
reaction time for the fuel and to demonstrate the chemical
possibility of the devised gasification process illustrated in
Fig. 1. In the experimental facility, the pyrolytic gasifier
and char combustor were separately installed. This makes
the whole facility be a modified circulating fluidized bed
(CFB) so that its operation can take advantage of the expe-
riences from CFB combustion. On the other hand, the
acquired result in this facility relative to chemical reactions
is surely applicable to the compact configuration shown in
Fig. 1 because for both the fuel pyrolysis/gasification pro-
ceeds in a BFB and char combustion in a PTR. However,
the particle circulation control should be different from
each other, raising thus another independent research of
ours on it in a cold model fluidised bed configured exactly
according to Fig. 1 [6].
As indicated in Fig. 5, the gasifier was a rectangular bed,
with a cross section of 80 · 370 mm2 and a height of
1800 mm. The riser was a circular column of 52.7 mm in
i.d. and 6400 mm in height. Both of these reactors were elec-
trically heated (at least to 973 K), while additional feed of
propane into them to facilitate temperature rise was also
possible. The biomass fuel, as specified in Table 1, was sup-
plied via a table feeder and the fed fuel was in turn carried
into the gasifier with a well-metered argon stream in a mass
Exhaust gas
Gas analyzer
Gs measure
Combustor
50A × 6400mmH
Gasification gas
filter
Tar trap
Biomass
Gasifier
370 × 80 × 1800mmH
37
FDF
Steam
generator
Fig. 5. A schematic diagram of the employed pilot dual fluidized bed gasification facility.
flow controller from a port located slightly above the fluid-
ized-particle bed surface. With respective cyclones and gas
exhaustion lines, the pressures inside the fuel gasifier and
char combustor could be independently controlled through
adjusting the performance of their IDFs (induction draft
fans). In order to prevent intermixing of gases between
the riser and gasifier, the gasifier had a specially designed
bed structure. This structure, called reactor siphon [7],
allowed the reactions of fuel pyrolysis and char gasification
to proceed inside the BFB, while it enabled as well the con-
trol of particle flow rate through the bed. The flue gas from
the riser combustor was directly cooled down and vented
into atmosphere after it passed through a bagfilter. Com-
pared to this, the product gas from the BFB gasifier was first
burned out in a combustion tube packed with ceramic balls
and heated electrically to about 823 K. Then, the gas was
subject to the same ventilation system as adopted for the
flue gas from the PTR combustor.
Herein, the presented test results were under given tem-
peratures of about 1073 K for gasifier and about 1103 K
for char combustor. The tested fuel was fuel no. 1 specified
in Table 1. The fuel feed rate and steam-to-fuel mass ratio
were both fixed at about 3.6 kg/h and 1.0 kg/kg (S/C =
1.22 mol/mol), respectively. Thus, the only varied para-
meter was the residence time of fuel particles inside the
gasifier, which was calculated from
Particle amount held in the gasifier
ð1Þ
Particles circulated in unit time
under an assumption that the particles pass through the
gasifier in a flow of plug type. For this calculation, the
Gas
cooler Bag filter
IDF
Combustion Gas
Bag filter
tube cooler
Gas analyzer
IDF
 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255 249

Table 2 15
C and H conversions, product distribution and composition at the end of Fuel : 1g

Concentration [vol.%]
fuel pyrolysis in a steam-blown fluidized bed of 1073 K 12 Temp. : 1073K
Conversion to gas (%) C: 63.0, H: 88.7 CO
Product distribution (wt.%)a Gas: 75, Char: 22.1, Tars: 2.9 9 H2
Molar composition (vol.%) 19.3H2 + 38.2CO + 9.5CO2 + 17.5CH4
(free of tracer gas) + 9.9C2H4 + 5.2C2H6 + 0.4C3H6 6
Char composition (wt.%)b 63.82C + 0.0H + 11.57N + 14.33O
+ 0.003S + 0.36Cl + 9.90 ash 3
Tar composition (wt.%)c 64.40C + 6.23H + 11.10N + 15.10O a
+ 3.01S + 0.11Cl 0
a
The fraction of tars was from pilot gasification test.
b
Derived from element mass balance. 100
c
From measuring the tar sample taken in pilot gasification test. b

Element conversion [%]

80

required particle circulation rate at the tested temperature
of 1103 K was experimentally measured by using a partic-
ularly designed heat-resistant valve [8].
The product gas was sampled at the gas exit of the gas-
ifier cyclone to trap the tars with the gas (for tar element
analysis) and to measure the gas’ molar composition. The
sample gas flow, induced with a suction pump, was first
condensed in a water condenser to trap most of the steam
present in the gas. Then, the gas passed through three
water bubblers kept in an ice-water bath to further trap
the tars with the gas. A wet gas meter was set behind the
last water bubbler to measure the sample gas flow rate that
was controlled at about 2.0 nL/min. By using a fabric filter
to capture further the tars escaping from the water bub-
blers (BTX, phenols and poly-aromatics exclusively) it
was demonstrated that the tar trapping efficiency in our
tar collection system was about 90%. The molar composi-
tion of product gas was measured in the same micro GC
adopted for the batch gasification test, while the product
gas volume was determined according to the rate of argon
stream used to carry fuel.
Extraction of the tars trapped in the condenser and
water bubblers was conducted by following successively
the steps of collecting the tarry water, washing the vessels
(using acetone), filtrating the collected water–acetone
liquid, vacuum vaporization of water and acetone
(<333 K) and drying tars (the vaporization residue) in
warm airflow (<323 K). The resulting dry tars were then
weighed to estimate the tar content in the product gas
and analysed for its element composition (see Table 2).
The tar content, however, will not be reported in this article
because of its little relevance to the article’s purpose.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Pyrolytic characteristics in steam-blown fluidized bed
As indicated in Section 2.1, gasification tests in the batch
fluidized bed gasifier (Fig. 2) were conducted to demon-
strate the pyrolytic characteristics of the fuel coffee
grounds. Fig. 6 exemplifies the time series of molar gas
composition (Fig. 6a) measured at the gasifier exit and
60
40 Fuel : 1g
Temp. : 1073K
20 C
H
0
0 30 60 90 120
Time [sec]
Fig. 6. Time series of (a) molar gas composition from a batch gasification
test in the steam-blown bubbling fluidised bed gasifier and (b) the
corresponding integrated C and H conversions estimated from the molar
composition.
the corresponding accumulative C and H conversions
(Fig. 6b) calculated according to the gas composition.
Surely, in this batch test the produced gas, a mixture of
H2, CO, CO2, CH4, C2H4, C2H6 and C3H6, should be first
gradually more and then gradually less with the progress of
reactions. The concentrations of CO and H2 in the outlet
gas (Fig. 6a) thus both exhibited a peak and finally
approached values nearby zero. On account of the much
slower char gasification in steam than fuel pyrolysis, we
took the end of quick product gas release marked with
the vertical broken line in Fig. 6 to represent the finish of
fuel pyrolysis. According to this figure, the pyrolysis ended
at about 43 s after dropping 1.0 g fuel into the reactor. This
time is longer than our anticipated values necessary to fuel
pyrolysis at the tested temperature of 1073 K. In a tubular
reactor and N2 atmosphere, Bingyan et al. [9] reported a
time of about 15 s for finishing the biomass pyrolysis at
1073 K. Here the longer time was considered to be due to
the too big reactor used. Nonetheless, our purpose was
other than measuring the time required for finishing fuel
pyrolysis. It was for determination of the conversions of
C and H into gas and the corresponding distribution of
pyrolytic products, i.e. gas, char and tars, in steam-blown
fluidised bed. Thus, the reactor size would not much affect
these intended data.
Fig. 6b shows the integrative C and H conversions (into
gas) corresponding to the gas molar composition exempli-
fied in Fig. 6a. The integrative conversion for time t was
calculated with (taking C as the example)
250 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
ðMoles of released C until time tÞ
; ð2Þ
ðMoles of C in the 1:0 g fuelÞ
where, the moles of released C as well as H until time t were
estimated from the time-series gas composition and dry gas
flow rate determined according to the flow rate of N2 tra-
cer. Nonetheless, the H conversion defined via Eq. (2) re-
fers to an explicit value because, on the one hand, part of
the fuel’s H would be converted into water in fuel pyrolysis
and, on the other hand, the product gas contains also the H
taken from steam via, for example, char steam gasification,
tar/hydrocarbon reforming and water gas shift.
After fuel feed, the integrative conversions of C and H
increased with reaction time, in response to the gradually
more product gas released from the reactor. At the end
of fuel pyrolysis (broken-line annotated) they reached
about 63% and 89%, respectively (see Table 2). These cor-
responded to a fuel mass conversion of about 75 wt.%. The
remaining 25 wt.% should be char and tars. In order to
determine their partition fractions we supposed that the
tar yield is the same as that measured hereafter via pilot
gasification test under the same 1073 K. There, it was
found that the evolved tars amounted to 2.9 wt.% of dry
fuel so that the char production became 22.1 wt.%. In this
mass balance the produced H2O in fuel pyrolysis was sug-
gested negligible and fuel ash was thought to be fully with
char. The molar composition of product gas listed in Table
2 refers to the measured values but excluding N2 tracer,
whereas the element composition of char was determined
according to element mass balances. For this, the element
content of tars, shown as well in Table 2, was treated as
known data, which was obtained by measuring the tar sam-
ple taken in the pilot gasification test at 1073 K shown
lately in Section 3.3.
The similar batch gasification tests were conducted also
at 973 and 1023 K (the other conditional parameters being
the same as at 1073 K), revealing obvious decreases in the
C and H conversions (into gas) and in the gas production
percentage with reducing the reaction temperature. The
acquired data clarified also that for realizing C conversions
higher than 60% the temperature has to be over 1073 K.
Besides, the H conversion was found to be always higher
than C conversion. While this reflects a general phenome-
non of biomass pyrolysis, in our case the presence of steam
may make the H conversion (against fuel H only) rather
large because steam reforming of tars and hydrocarbons
would occur to convert some H of steam into product
gas. The H conversion was lower than 100%. This is due
to the fact that part of the fuel H had to become H2O dur-
ing fuel pyrolysis. On the other hand, it shows also that the
accompanying steam reforming reactions for the tested
pyrolysis in steam did not occur to an extensive degree to
make the H conversion over 100%. In the test we also
observed serious tar deposition onto pipes behind the gas-
ifier, which made the pipes brown, even black. Because of
the higher conversion of H than of C into the product
gas, the tars must have a C-to-H ratio higher than that in
the fuel. Table 2 verifies this by showing that the C/H ratio
is 64.4/6.23 for tars but 54.9/6.12 for the tested coffee
grounds (no. 2 in Table 1).
3.2. Theoretically possible gasification efficiency
The preceding batch test was for a dried fuel and also
did not consider the heat balance between the fuel gasifier
and char combustor. Using the result of such a batch test
(in Table 2) as the required known input, a process simula-
tion with ASPEN according to the process and chemical
models outlined in Figs. 3 and 4 was conducted to deter-
mine the possibly available gasification efficiencies for the
whole plant of Fig. 1.
Table 3 summarizes the simulated conditions and the
required known input. The fuel treated was the same coffee
grounds no. 2 specified in Table 1 but with water contents
varying in 3.0–45.0 wt.%. The wet-base fuel feed rate was
250 kg/h. Steam at 773 K was supplied into the gasifier
according to a mass ratio of 1.0 kg/kg of steam to dry fuel.
Water with the fuel was supposed to be completely vapor-
ized inside the pyrolyzer (see chemical models in Fig. 4),
causing it to mix with the supplied steam and in turn to
raise its temperature to the gasification temperature of
1073 K. The employed heat carrier particles were silica
sand of 190 lm in Sauter mean diameter. An air ratio of
1.5 against the char amount from the gasifier was taken
to determine the airflow rate into the char combustor.
Table 3 mentions also several other characteristic tempera-
tures, which were all from the process model outlined in
Fig. 3. The data about fuel pyrolysis were based on Table
2.
Fig. 7 shows the simulation results acquired, with
Fig. 7a for the available cold gas efficiency (left Y, based
on HHV) and C and H conversions (right Y) and Fig. 7b
for the necessarily required conditions that assure the effi-
ciency and conversions. The conditions were presented
with circulation rate of heat carrier particles (left Y) and
auxiliary fuel amount fed to the combustor (right Y). All
the parameters were expressed as a function of fuel water
content. While the displayed circulation rate refers to a spe-
cific value against the treated dry fuel amount, the amount
of auxiliary fuel (with the same water content as that fed to
Table 3
Conditions and known input for process simulation
Fuel: coffee grounds no. 2, 250 kg/h, with water content varied in
3.0–45.0 wt.%
Gasifier: temperature = 1073 k; Steam/dry-fuel = 1.0 (mass ratio);
Steam temperature = 773 K
Combustor: temperature = 1173 k; Air ratio = 1.5;
Air temperature = Heated via hot product gas
Heat carrier particles (sand): Sauter mean dp = 190 lm; Gs: by heat
balance
Exhaust temperatures: flue gas temperature = 423 K; Product gas
temperature = 573 K
Pyrolysis characteristics (product allocation, gas/tar composition): in
Table 2
 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255 251

100 150 quently the C amount for gas production. The converted
a H also decreases because the decreased C amount for steam

Element conversion [%]

Cold gas efficiency [%]
90 gasification reduces the converted H from H2O (i.e. steam).
120 Corresponding to the simulation conditions that 99% tars
80
are reformed and the combusted char is almost free of H,
Cold gas efficiency
70 C conversion
the resulting H conversion is always higher than 100%.
90
H conversion When no heat loss is considered, the available cold gas effi-
60
ciency can be over 80% for fuels with water content lower
50 60 than 40 wt.%. In order to reach a cold gas efficiency of
85%, the fuel’s water content has to be lower than 10 wt.%.
50 20
Circulation rate / Dry fuel feed rate As the necessary conditions assuring the gasification effi-
b

Auxiliary fuel [wet-kg/h]

[-]

40
Auxiliary fuel ciencies mentioned above, Fig. 7b demonstrates that with
15 raising the fuel’s water content the entailed relative circula-
Dry fuel feed rate
Circulation rate

30 tion rate of heat carrier particles against the treated dry

20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40
Fuel's water content [wt%]
Fig. 7. Simulation results of (a) gasification efficiency shown with cold gas
efficiency and C and H conversions and (b) the correspondingly required
particle circulation rate and auxiliary fuel feed to the combustor.
the gasifier) indicates the value without heat loss from the
system. Hence, the unavoidable heat loss in practical plants
would make both the parameters surely higher, as will be
clarified in Fig. 8.
As anticipated, the available cold gas efficiency and C
and H conversions (Fig. 7a) all decrease with raising the
water content in the fuel. The higher the fuel water content,
the more the heat required to vaporize the water and to
heat the resulting steam to the gasifier temperature (here
1073 K). On the other hand, this part of heat cannot be
completely recovered from the product gas because its out-
let temperature is 573 K. It was considered that until down-
stream scrubber the product gas is better to be over such a
temperature in order to avoid substantial deposition of tars
on pipeline. Hence, the higher water content means the
more C needed to be combusted to maintain the tempera-
tures of the combustor and fuel gasifier, lowering conse-
100
Fuel's water content : 10 wt. %
Cold gas efficiency [%]
10 fuel amount becomes higher (left Y). Meanwhile, until a
water content of 25 wt.% no auxiliary fuel is required (right
5 Y), whereas further increase of the fuel water content has
to lead to gradually higher consumption of auxiliary fuel.
50
0 These clarifications are obviously reasonable because they
responded just to the change of fuel enthalpy with fuel
water content.
Nonetheless, the C and H conversions show in Fig. 7a
are higher than the experimental data indicated in Table
2 (from batch gasification test). The steam gasification of
char without kinetic limit, complete tar reforming (99%
reformed) and zero heat loss considered in the simulation
should be the causes. Although these assumptions are too
ideal, the simulation itself shows its significance by clarify-
ing theoretically the available highest gasification efficien-
cies for the examined fuels and technology.
On the other hand, based on Fig. 7 we can simply inves-
tigate how heat loss affects the gasification efficiency and its
required conditions. Fig. 8 presents the variations of the
available cold gas efficiency (left Y) and entailed auxiliary
fuel feed (right Y) with heat loss of up to 30% of the fuel
energy inputted into the gasifier. The considered case was
for a water content of 10 wt.%. The revised cold gas effi-
ciency was computed from
ðEfficiency wihout heat lossÞ=ð1 þ heat loss percentageÞ;
ð3Þ
while the modified necessary auxiliary fuel feed was deter-
mined as
25 8
> 0 if equivalent energy of gasified char

Auxiliary fuel [wet-kg/h]

Cold gas efficiency >

>
90 Auxiliary fuel 20 >
< at zero heat loss > Actual heat loss
80 15 > ‘Actual heat loss’  ‘Equivalent energy of gasified char
>
>
>
:
70 10 at zero heat loss’; Otherwise:
ð4Þ
60 5
As expected, raising the heat loss surely decreases the cold
50 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 gas efficiency and increases the required auxiliary fuel feed.
Heat loss [%] If supposing that the heat loss varies generally from 5% to
Fig. 8. Theoretically possible cold gas efficiency with consideration of heat
10% of the treated fuel energy, we can see that the cold gas
loss of up to 30% of fuel energy fed into the gasifier under a fuel water efficiency without kinetic constrainments can be still 77%–
content of 10 wt.%. 81%. On this basis, we suggest that the water content of the
252 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255

coffee grounds fuel for gasification is better to be about 1180

Gasifier Combustor
10 wt.% in order to assure the gasification efficiencies above 0.30m 0.30m
75%. Although no auxiliary fuel feed is needed in Fig. 7 for 1160
0.65m 1.40m

Temperature [K]
the fuel containing 10 wt.% water, the presence of heat loss 1.40m 2.50m
1140
makes it absolutely necessary when the loss is over 6%. The 4.80m
result judges further that the fuel’s water content should be 1120
around 10 wt.% in order to achieve energy conversion effi-
ciencies over 75%. This provides actually a design/opera- 1100
tion standard for the upstream fuel drier.
1080

3.3. Necessary reaction time 1060

How long should the reaction time be for fuel particles
inside the gasifier in order to finish fuel pyrolysis and to
realize the cold gas efficiency desired, such as over 75%.
This is actually another unavoidable problem that has to
be answered for developing the devised gasification plant.
For this answer a few tests with the coffee grounds no. 1
were conducted in the pilot dual fluidised bed gasification
facility sketched in Fig. 5 by varying the residence time
of fuel particles inside the gasifier. According to formula-
tion (1) the different residence times were realized by
adjusting the gas velocity in the riser combustor to vary
the particle circulation rate. From these gasification tests
we also gained the tar sample analysed for the tar element
composition listed in Table 2.
Fig. 9 exemplifies the time series of molar composition
(including tracer gas) and HHV of the produced gas
(Fig. 9a) and their corresponding transient cold gas effi-
ciency and C and H conversions (Fig. 9b). The plotted test
60
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time [min]
Fig. 10. Typical time series of the temperatures inside the BFB gasifier
(d,j, m) and riser combustor (h, s, n, e) of the employed pilot dual bed
facility during a test.
was for an explicit residence time of 160 s of fuel particles
inside the gasifier determined according to formulation (1).
The correspondingly required airflow into the riser was
70 nL/min. Fig. 10 shows the time series of a few typical
temperatures measured for this test. The displayed temper-
atures were for different bed heights in the BFB gasifier
(solid marks) and riser combustor (open marks), and the
time zero refers to the onset of fuel feed.
As for fuel gasifier we can see from Fig. 10 that its free-
board (m) remained in a relatively stable temperature,
whereas its particle bed (d j) exhibited an evident local
temperature drop with fuel feed. This is indicative of the
occurrence of endothermic fuel pyrolysis/gasification reac-
tions inside the particle bed. Being subject to electric heat-
4500 ing, the dropped temperatures began to rebound to higher
Gas heating value [kcal/mN ]

Gas heating value

a values since 5 min and in turn reached relatively steady
Gas concentration [%]

50 H2 CH4
CO C2H4+C2H6 4200 values at about 30 min after the fuel feed. At last the upper
40 CO2 C3H6
3900
particle bed (j) and freeboard (m) stagnated at nearly the
30 same temperature, which was the situation expected in set-
3600 ting. The bed bottom (d, 0.3 m above the distributor) had
20
slightly lower temperatures, say, for about 15 K, which
10 3300 shown just an effect of the inlet steam. Inside the riser the
temperatures experienced a local drop as well with fuel feed
3

0 3000
by responding to the lowered particle temperatures inside
100 100
b
the gasifier. Nonetheless, the temperature drop itself was
Element conversion [%]
Cold gas efficiency [%]

90 90 smaller than in the gasifier, while its rebounding was much

80 80
quicker. This allowed the riser’s temperatures at different
elevations to reach their respective steady-states in about
70 70 15 min. Meanwhile, the riser bottom (s) possessed the low-
60 60 est temperature, showing just the process feature that the
Cold gas efficiency particles from the gasifier have the lowest temperature so
50 C conversion 50
H conversion that they need to be reheated in traveling through the riser
40 40 combustor. In regard to the exemplified cases the most
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time [min] intensive char combustion occurred possibly in the middle
section of the rise, causing the highest temperature inside
Fig. 9. Time series of molar composition of rude product gas (with tracer) the riser to emerge at the height of about 2.5 m (n).
and the corresponding transient HHV, cold gas efficiency and C and H
conversions measured in the dual bed pilot gasification facility under an
The gas compositions in Fig. 9 show evidently that the
explicit fuel particle residence time of 160 s inside the gasifier (the other operation trended to become quasi-steady since 10 min
conditional parameters being detailed in Section 2.3). after fuel feed (based on the displayed conversions and
 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
HHVs). This, compared to the temperature profiles in
Fig. 10, reveals that the reaction temperature variation in
about 10 K after 10 min of fuel feed did not greatly affect
the gas generation characteristics. Under the tested condi-
tions (see the Section 2.3) CO took the highest concentra-
tion of about 28 vol.% in the product gas (for the tested
case the tracer concentration being 24 vol.%). Following
this were H2, CH4, CO2, C2 and C3 hydrocarbons in succes-
sion (left Y, Fig. 9a). The molar ratio of H2 to CO was
about 0.6, with the absolute H2 concentration being about
15 vol.%. Corresponding to the mentioned gas composition
the gas’ HHV (right Y, Fig. 9a) was about 3900 kcal/nm3.
Concerning the product gases from biomass gasification
this HHV represents a high caloric value, verifying the dis-
tinctive merit of the dual fluidised gasification technology
mentioned in Section 1. The concentration diagrams in
Fig. 9a clarify also that the product gas contained hydro-
carbons (including CH4) more than 20 vol.%. In the view
of H2 production it is important to convert these gas
species into CO and H2 via reforming.
Fig. 9b demonstrates that the achieved cold gas efficiency
was 69% or so, corresponding to C and H conversions of
about 65% and 88%, respectively. These conversions are
somehow very close to the values shown in Table 2 for fuel
pyrolysis obtained in the batch gasification tests under a
similar temperature. It indicates essentially that the reac-
tions occurring inside the gasifier of the pilot gasification
facility (Fig. 5) were principally fuel pyrolysis, just aligning
with our general anticipation about biomass gasification.
That is, its gas production should mainly rely on fuel pyro-
lysis rather than on char gasification. Nonetheless, the
reported test suffered probably a fuel loss of about 5% of
the original feed because the feed of fuel particles into the
gasifier’s freeboard would lead to an easy elutriation of fine
particles. In a strict sense we thus believe that the C and H
conversions and cold gas efficiency attainable in the pilot
gasification test are slightly higher than those from fuel
pyrolysis shown in Table 2. This tokens the occurrence of
steam reforming of C inside the gasifier. The longer reaction
time in this case (160 s) than in Fig. 6 (concerned time: 45 s)
should be the cause.
A test similar to the illustration of Figs. 9 and 10 was
conducted also at an explicit residence time of 1200 s of
fuel particles inside the gasifier. Meanwhile, another recent
publication of ours [10] had reported a set of data obtained
by gasifying the same fuel in the riser of the same facility.
In this case, the riser becomes the gasifier so that the fuel
particle residence time is basically equal to the gas resi-
dence time because particles move with the gas. At the
reported superficial gas velocity of 2.82 m/s (at bed temper-
ature) the fuel particle residence time becomes 2.3 s or so
(riser height being 6.4 m). By summarizing all of these men-
tioned data we have then Fig. 11 where the steady-state
cold gas efficiency and its corresponding C and H conver-
sions are displayed as functions of the explicit fuel particle
residence time. In the plot the data indicated by the keys s,
h and n are from the gasification test inside the riser [10],
253
100 100
Element conversion [%]
Cold gas efficiency [%]
90 90
80
80
70
70
60
Cold gas efficiency
50 C conversion 60
H conversion
40 50
0 300 600 900 1200
Fuel residence time in gasifier [sec]
Fig. 11. Steady-state cold gas efficiency and its corresponding C and H
conversions under different explicit residence times of fuel particles inside
the gasifier of the pilot dual bed facility.
whose test conditions are similar to those employed here.
That is, except for the similar reaction temperature of
1073 K, the fuel feed rate was also about 3.5 kg/h and
steam-to-fuel mass ratio was around 1.0.
The figure shows that with increasing the fuel particle
residence time the conversions of C and H and their corre-
sponding cold gas efficiency increased gradually. However,
when prolonging the time from 160 to 1200 s the increases
in conversion and efficiency were confined to a few percents
(<5.0%). Corresponding to this, the increase in the resi-
dence time of fuel particles from 2.3 s to 160 s induced dis-
tinctive increases in both efficiency and conversion. While
the H conversion (n m) elevated to 88% from 62%, the
cold gas efficiency (s d) and C conversion (h j) exhibited
increases of about 13%. Consequently, for the devised
gasification plant (Fig. 1) the required explicit fuel particle
residence time inside its gasifier can be lower than 160 s.
Rather longer residence time is beneficial to fuel conver-
sion, but the actually available benefit is slight. On the
other hand, the gasification inside the riser cannot provide
the fuel sufficiently long time to finish even pyrolysis
because inside the riser the available average residence time
for the gas and particles is below 10 s [11]. Examining
Fig. 11 we can see actually that the C and H conversions
indicated with the keys s, h and n are truly much lower
than the corresponding values mentioned in Table 2 for
fuel pyrolysis. This, in essence, verifies that in this case
the fuel pyrolysis was not yet completed. This is also why
the design of the gasification plant conceptualized in
Fig. 1 deploys its fuel gasification into a BFB and its char
combustion into a riser coupled to the BFB. Regarding this
technical choice we had presented another publication [10]
to compare the available efficiencies and conversions when
gasifying the same fuel inside the riser and BFB of a dual
fluidized bed system, respectively.
Nonetheless, the element (C and H) conversions and
cold gas efficiency shown here are much lower than those
indicated in Figs. 7a and 8 (left Y). For example, at the fuel
water content of 10 wt.% the available C and H conver-
sions and cold gas efficiency can be, respectively, 75%,
140% and 85% in Fig. 7a but only 68%, 92% and 72% in
254 T. Murakami et al. / Fuel 86 (2007) 244–255
Fig. 11 at the residence time of 1200 s. The production of
tars and a low degree of C steam gasification involved in
the gasification test should be the reasons for the men-
tioned lower experimental fuel conversion and cold gas effi-
ciency on comparison of their theoretical values predicted
in the process simulation. As early mentioned in Section
3.2, the preconditions for the simulation results shown in
Figs. 7 and 8 are that 99% of the tars generated in fuel
pyrolysis is reformed and all unburned char (i.e. C) is gas-
ified through reaction with steam. The fact in the experi-
ment was that up to 3.0 wt.% of the fuel mass was
present as tars (at 1073 K), and the slow char gasification
reaction might be unable to afford to a desired amount
of char to be gasified. Hence, the fuel conversion from
experiment must be lower than the predicted value. Com-
paring Figs. 11 and 7a clarifies that the C conversion
shared differences only of a few percents (at a water content
of 10 wt.%), but the differences in H conversion are over
40%. This is indicative of the low degree of tar reforming
and char steam gasification reactions occurring in the
experiments. On the other hand, we should also note that
in the presented tests a few percents of supplied fuel (up
to 5.0%) were entrained with the gas flow from the gasifier
because the fuel was fed into the gasifier’s freeboard. This
further lowered the experimental fuel conversion into gas.
4. Conclusions
With both experimental tests and process simulation,
the present study clarified the following engineering funda-
mentals relative to chemical reactions and heat/mass bal-
ances that are necessary to the development of a newly
devised dual bed gasification plant for biomass which
adopts a bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) as its gasifier and
a pneumatic transported riser (PTR) coupled to the BFB
as its char combustor.
(1) The gasification of, for example, 1.0 g biomass fuel in
a steam-blown fluidized bed in batch format
appeared to be effective to measure the fuel pyrolysis
characteristics in BFB reactors and steam atmo-
sphere. As for our tested biomass fuel, a kind of dried
coffee grounds (water content being 10 wt.%), it was
demonstrated that the fuel pyrolysis under a reaction
temperature of 1073 K and a steam atmosphere was
able to convert 63% of fuel C into product gas. The
corresponding explicit H conversion with respect to
fuel H reached about 90%. Both of these led about
75% of the fuel mass to be converted into product
gas.
(2) With the fuel pyrolysis characteristics clarified above
as the necessarily required known input, a process
simulation using the software package ASPEN dem-
onstrated that the devised dual fluidised bed gasifica-
tion plant can sustain its independent heat and mass
loops with a cold gas efficiency over 75% at a reaction
temperature of 1073 K, provided (a) the heat carried
with the product gas from the BFB gasifier and that
with the flue gas from the char combustor are effi-
ciently recovered to produce steam reagent and to
preheat combustion air, and (b) the tars generated
in fuel pyrolysis are mostly reformed. The simulation
clarified also that with increasing the fuel’s water con-
tent the available cold gas efficiency and C and H
conversions decrease, whereas the required specific
circulation rate of heat carrier particles with respect
to the treated dry fuel amount increases. When con-
sidering the practical applications with more than
3.0% of fuel’s enthalpy as heat loss, we suggested that
the fuel for treatment should contain water not much
over 10 wt.% in order to maintain the available cold
gas efficiency higher than 75%.
(3) Gasifying dried coffee grounds in a pilot dual fluid-
ized bed gasification facility simulating the devised
gasification plant clarified that the explicit residence
time of fuel particles inside the BFB gasifier (using
steam as the gasification reagent) calculated accord-
ing to a plug granular flow assumption could be
shorter than 160 s. This time can guarantee the finish
of fuel pyrolysis so that further prolonging the fuel’s
residence time did not much improve the realized fuel
conversion and cold gas efficiency. The result indi-
cates essentially that as for biomass gasification the
generated product gas comes basically from fuel
pyrolysis. Through the tests we demonstrated also
that the PTR reactor of the experimental facility
was unable to provide the fuel sufficiently long reac-
tion time to complete even fuel pyrolysis. This dem-
onstration justifies the superior technical choice of
the devised dual bed gasification plant, which should
arrange its BFB as the fuel gasifier and its PTR as the
char combustor.
Acknowledgement
The work was conducted during a research program fi-
nanced by The New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO), Japan, on developing
an advanced upgrading and pyrolytic gasification system
for biomass with high water content. The authors are also
grateful to Mr. Minoru Asai and Mr. Shigeru Kitano of the
same company for their helps in experiment.
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