Experiment and Simulation of the Non-Catalytic Reforming of Biomass Gasification Producer Gas for Syngas Production

Among biomass gasification syngas cleaning methods, non-catalytic reforming emerges as a sustainable and high-efficiency alternative. This study employed integrated experimental analysis and kinetic modeling to examine non-catalytic reforming processes of biomass-derived producer gas utilizing a synthetic tar mixture containing representative model compounds: naphthalene (C 10 H 8 ), toluene (C 7 H 8 ), benzene (C 6 H 6 ), and phenol (C 6 H 5 OH). The experiments were conducted using a high-temperature fixed-bed reactor under varying temperatures (1100–1500 °C) and equivalence ratios (ERs, 0.10–0.30). The results obtained from the experiment, namely the measured mole concentration of H 2 , CO, CH 4 , CO 2 , H 2 O, soot, and tar suggested that both reactor temperature and O 2 content had an important effect. Increasing the temperature significantly promotes the formation of H 2 and CO. At 1500 °C and a residence time of 0.01 s, the product gas achieved CO and H 2 concentrations of 28.02% and 34.35%, respectively, while CH 4 , tar, and soot were almost entirely converted. Conversely, the addition of O 2 reduces the concentrations of H 2 and CO. Increasing ER from 0.10 to 0.20 could reduce CO from 22.25% to 16.11%, and H 2 from 13.81% to 10.54%, respectively. Experimental results were used to derive a kinetic model to accurately describe the non-catalytic reforming of producer gas. Furthermore, the maximum of the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and the Relative Root Mean Square Error (RRMSE) between the model predictions and experimental data are 2.42% and 11.01%, respectively. In particular, according to the kinetic model, the temperature increases predominantly accelerated endothermic reactions, including the Boudouard reaction, water gas reaction, and CH 4 steam reforming, thereby significantly enhancing CO and H 2 production. Simultaneously, O 2 content primarily influenced carbon monoxide oxidation, hydrogen oxidation, and partial carbon oxidation.