| dc.description.abstract | Sustainable energy supply and waste management are two of the major challenges of the present time. The proper utilization of the vast resource of renewable biomass is necessary for a sustainable civilization toward the net-zero emission target. To achieve this goal, biomass conversion technologies can contribute with their great potential. Gasification of biomass is such a process that produces product gas that can be utilized for power generation or as a raw material for secondary fuel production. Lignin, an available source of biomass, is the second most prevalent natural polymer. It has the potential to be employed effectively in biofuel production. Experiments on the gasification of lignin in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor were carried out in a pilot-scale reactor at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), Porsgrunn. A simulation model based on the Computational Particle Fluid Dynamics (CPFD) method was developed using the commercial software Barracuda VR and the results were compared to the experimental data. The average volume percentage of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane and nitrogen were found to be around 15.55%, 13.32%, 4.33% and 51.23% respectively in the experiment for the equivalence ratio (ER) 0.165. The data for the gas compositions were also analyzed at the ER of 0.215 and 0.264. The simulation results agree well with most of the experimental results. The oxygen concentration during the experiment was around 1% which showed some degree of air contamination of the gas samples. Product gas yield (GY), lower heating value (LHV), carbon conversion efficiency (CCE), cold gas efficiency (CGE), and energy rate were calculated to analyze the gasifier performance. Lignin pellets showed acceptable results, with an average carbon conversion of around 38%. | |
