IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i10p2863-d555474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Implications on Feedstock Processing and Safety Issues for Semi-Batch Operations in Supercritical Water Gasification of Biomass

Author

Listed:
  • Cataldo De Blasio

    (Laboratory of Energy Technology, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Rantakatu 2, 65100 Vaasa, Finland)

  • Gabriel Salierno

    (Laboratory of Energy Technology, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Rantakatu 2, 65100 Vaasa, Finland)

  • Andrea Magnano

    (ENGIE Eps-Electro Power Systems S.A.–Via Antonio Paracca, 12/d, 10098 Rivoli, TO, Italy)

Abstract

Biomass with a large amount of moisture is well-suited to be processed by supercritical water gasification, SCWG. The precipitation of inorganics, together with char formation and re-polymerization, can cause reactor plugging and stop the process operations. When plugging occurs, sudden injections of relatively large mass quantities take place, influencing the mass flow dynamics significantly in the process. Reactor plugging is a phenomenon very well observed during SCWG of industrial feedstock, which hinders scale-up initiatives, and it is seldom studied with precision in the literature. The present study provides an accurate evaluation of continuous tubular reactor dynamics in the event of sudden injections of water. An interpretation of the results regarding water properties at supercritical conditions contributes to comprehending mass and heat transfer when plugging occurs. Experiments are then compared to SCWG of a biomass sample aiming to give key insights into heat transfer and fluid dynamics mechanisms that could help develop operational and control strategies to increase the reliability of SCWG. In addition, a simplified model is presented to assess the effect of material integrity on burst-event likelihood, which states that SCWG is safe to operate, at 250 bar and 610 °C, in tubular reactors made of 0.22 wall thickness-to-diameter ratio Inconel-625 with superficial microfractures smaller than 30 µm. We also suggest improvement opportunities for the safety of SCWG in continuous operation mode.

Suggested Citation

  • Cataldo De Blasio & Gabriel Salierno & Andrea Magnano, 2021. "Implications on Feedstock Processing and Safety Issues for Semi-Batch Operations in Supercritical Water Gasification of Biomass," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-19, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:10:p:2863-:d:555474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/10/2863/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/10/2863/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kan, Tao & Strezov, Vladimir & Evans, Tim J., 2016. "Lignocellulosic biomass pyrolysis: A review of product properties and effects of pyrolysis parameters," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1126-1140.
    2. Özdenkçi, Karhan & De Blasio, Cataldo & Sarwar, Golam & Melin, Kristian & Koskinen, Jukka & Alopaeus, Ville, 2019. "Techno-economic feasibility of supercritical water gasification of black liquor," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Dahlquist, Erik & Naqvi, Muhammad & Thorin, Eva & Yan, Jinyue & Kyprianidis, Konstantinos & Hartwell, Philip, 2017. "Experimental and numerical investigation of pellet and black liquor gasification for polygeneration plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1055-1064.
    4. Carvalho, Lara & Lundgren, Joakim & Wetterlund, Elisabeth & Wolf, Jens & Furusjö, Erik, 2018. "Methanol production via black liquor co-gasification with expanded raw material base – Techno-economic assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 570-584.
    5. Sansaniwal, S.K. & Rosen, M.A. & Tyagi, S.K., 2017. "Global challenges in the sustainable development of biomass gasification: An overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 23-43.
    6. Nilesh Kumar Jha & Maxim Lebedev & Stefan Iglauer & Jitendra S. Sangwai & Mohammad Sarmadivaleh, 2020. "In Situ Wettability Investigation of Aging of Sandstone Surface in Alkane via X-ray Microtomography," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-9, October.
    7. De Blasio, Cataldo & De Gisi, Sabino & Molino, Antonio & Simonetti, Marco & Santarelli, Massimo & Björklund-Sänkiaho, Margareta, 2019. "Concerning operational aspects in supercritical water gasification of kraft black liquor," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 891-901.
    8. Onursal Yakaboylu & John Harinck & K. G. Smit & Wiebren De Jong, 2015. "Supercritical Water Gasification of Biomass: A Literature and Technology Overview," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-36, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Özdenkçi, Karhan & Prestipino, Mauro & Björklund-Sänkiaho, Margareta & Galvagno, Antonio & De Blasio, Cataldo, 2020. "Alternative energy valorization routes of black liquor by stepwise supercritical water gasification: Effect of process parameters on hydrogen yield and energy efficiency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Hu, Yulin & Gong, Mengyue & Xing, Xuelian & Wang, Haoyu & Zeng, Yimin & Xu, Chunbao Charles, 2020. "Supercritical water gasification of biomass model compounds: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    3. Mohsin Raza & Abrar Inayat & Ashfaq Ahmed & Farrukh Jamil & Chaouki Ghenai & Salman R. Naqvi & Abdallah Shanableh & Muhammad Ayoub & Ammara Waris & Young-Kwon Park, 2021. "Progress of the Pyrolyzer Reactors and Advanced Technologies for Biomass Pyrolysis Processing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-42, October.
    4. Perkins, Greg & Bhaskar, Thallada & Konarova, Muxina, 2018. "Process development status of fast pyrolysis technologies for the manufacture of renewable transport fuels from biomass," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 292-315.
    5. Pio, D.T. & Tarelho, L.A.C. & Pinto, P.C.R., 2020. "Gasification-based biorefinery integration in the pulp and paper industry: A critical review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    6. Qi, Xingang & Li, Xujun & Liu, Fan & Lu, Libo & Jin, Hui & Wei, Wenwen & Chen, Yunan & Guo, Liejin, 2023. "Hydrogen production by kraft black liquor supercritical water gasification: Reaction pathway and kinetic," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    7. Prestipino, Mauro & Salmeri, Fabio & Cucinotta, Filippo & Galvagno, Antonio, 2021. "Thermodynamic and environmental sustainability analysis of electricity production from an integrated cogeneration system based on residual biomass: A life cycle approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    8. Porcu, Andrea & Xu, Yupeng & Mureddu, Mauro & Dessì, Federica & Shahnam, Mehrdad & Rogers, William A. & Sastri, Bhima S. & Pettinau, Alberto, 2021. "Experimental validation of a multiphase flow model of a lab-scale fluidized-bed gasification unit," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    9. Naqvi, Salman Raza & Jamshaid, Sana & Naqvi, Muhammad & Farooq, Wasif & Niazi, Muhammad Bilal Khan & Aman, Zaeem & Zubair, Muhammad & Ali, Majid & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Inayat, Abrar & Afzal, Waheed, 2018. "Potential of biomass for bioenergy in Pakistan based on present case and future perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1247-1258.
    10. JoungDu Shin & SangWon Park & Changyoon Jeong, 2020. "Assessment of Agro-Environmental Impacts for Supplemented Methods to Biochar Manure Pellets during Rice ( Oryza sativa L.) Cultivation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-14, April.
    11. Ramos, Ana & Monteiro, Eliseu & Rouboa, Abel, 2019. "Numerical approaches and comprehensive models for gasification process: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 188-206.
    12. Mohamed Magdeldin & Thomas Kohl & Cataldo De Blasio & Mika Järvinen & Song Won Park & Reinaldo Giudici, 2016. "The BioSCWG Project: Understanding the Trade-Offs in the Process and Thermal Design of Hydrogen and Synthetic Natural Gas Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-27, October.
    13. Chen, Xiangmeng & Shafizadeh, Alireza & Shahbeik, Hossein & Nadian, Mohammad Hossein & Golvirdizadeh, Milad & Peng, Wanxi & Lam, Su Shiung & Tabatabaei, Meisam & Aghbashlo, Mortaza, 2025. "Enhanced bio-oil production from biomass catalytic pyrolysis using machine learning," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Fanta Barry & Marie Sawadogo & Maïmouna Bologo (Traoré) & Igor W. K. Ouédraogo & Thomas Dogot, 2021. "Key Barriers to the Adoption of Biomass Gasification in Burkina Faso," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-14, June.
    15. Wang, Chu & Yuan, Xinhua & Li, Shanshan & Zhu, Xifeng, 2021. "Enrichment of phenolic products in walnut shell pyrolysis bio-oil by combining torrefaction pretreatment with fractional condensation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 1317-1329.
    16. Kumar, R. & Strezov, V., 2021. "Thermochemical production of bio-oil: A review of downstream processing technologies for bio-oil upgrading, production of hydrogen and high value-added products," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    17. Bello, Yusuf H. & Ahmed, Mahmoud A. & Ookawara, Shinichi & Elwardany, Ahmed E., 2022. "Numerical and experimental investigation on air distributor design of fluidized bed reactor of sawdust pyrolysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).
    18. Barta-Rajnai, E. & Wang, L. & Sebestyén, Z. & Barta, Z. & Khalil, R. & Skreiberg, Ø. & Grønli, M. & Jakab, E. & Czégény, Z., 2017. "Comparative study on the thermal behavior of untreated and various torrefied bark, stem wood, and stump of Norway spruce," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1043-1054.
    19. Jafri, Yawer & Wetterlund, Elisabeth & Mesfun, Sennai & Rådberg, Henrik & Mossberg, Johanna & Hulteberg, Christian & Furusjö, Erik, 2020. "Combining expansion in pulp capacity with production of sustainable biofuels – Techno-economic and greenhouse gas emissions assessment of drop-in fuels from black liquor part-streams," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    20. Ke, Cunfeng & Zhang, Yaning & Gao, Yanan & Pan, Yaoyu & Li, Bingxi & Wang, Yunpu & Ruan, Roger, 2019. "Syngas production from microwave-assisted air gasification of biomass: Part 1 model development," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 772-778.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:10:p:2863-:d:555474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.