Modeling of Biomass Gasification: From Thermodynamics to Process Simulations

Biomass gasification has obtained great interest over the last few decades as an effective and trustable technology to produce energy and fuels with net-zero carbon emissions. Moreover, using biomass waste as feedstock enables the recycling of organic wastes and contributing to circular economy goals, thus reducing the environmental impacts of waste management. Even though many studies have already been carried out, this kind of process must still be investigated and optimized, with the final aim of developing industrial plants for different applications, from hydrogen production to net-negative emission strategies. Modeling and development of process simulations became an important tool to investigate the chemical and physical behavior of plants, allowing raw optimization of the process and defining heat and material balances of plants, as well as defining optimal geometrical parameters with cost- and time-effective approaches. The present review paper focuses on the main literature models developed until now to describe the biomass gasification process, and in particular on kinetic models, thermodynamic models, and computational fluid dynamic models. The aim of this study is to point out the strengths and the weakness of those models, comparing them and indicating in which situation it is better to use one approach instead of another. Moreover, theoretical shortcut models and software simulations not explicitly addressed by prior reviews are taken into account. For researchers and designers, this review provides a detailed methodology characterization as a guide to develop innovative studies or projects.