It is provided a method of converting a carbonaceous material into syngas at a carbon conversion rate of at least 78% comprising gasifying the carbonaceous material in a fluidized bed reactor producing a crude syngas, classifying the crude syngas by particle size and density into a cut sizing device, introducing the classified particle crude syngas into a thermal reformer and reforming the classified crude syngas at a temperature above mineral melting point, producing the syngas.

The present invention relates to the processing of carbonaceous materials for, inter alia, hydrogen production. In particular, the invention relates to the production of hydrogen, for example, as input for industrial manufacturing applications or as a fuel source for the associated generation of electric power. In one form, the invention provides a method of producing hydrogen comprising the step of reacting a combination of solid carbonaceous material and a catalyst comprising alpha phase iron-based material adapted to produce an exothermic reaction with the solid carbonaceous material.

A system includes a controller having a processor, a memory, and instructions stored on the memory and executable by the processor to: control a biochar pyrolysis reactor to heat a biomass feedstock to cause a pyrolysis reaction of the biomass feedstock using heat from a power plant to generate a biochar and a syngas, and control a biochar sorbent system to adsorb an undesirable gas from an exhaust gas of the power plant into the biochar to generate an enriched biochar and a treated gas.

Processes and systems are disclosed for converting animal manure into useful energy and materials. Some variations provide a process for converting animal manure into a purified thermal gas, comprising: drying a starting animal manure in a manure dryer; pelletizing the dried animal manure to generate manure pellets; thermally reacting the manure pellets in a thermal reactor to generate an intermediate thermal gas and a solid biochar; separating out the solid biochar; condensing the intermediate thermal gas to generate a cooled thermal gas; compressing the cooled thermal gas to generate a compressed thermal gas; catalytically reacting the compressed thermal gas in a water-gas shift reactor to generate a shifted thermal gas having an adjusted H.sub.2/CO ratio; treating the shifted thermal gas using an acid-gas removal unit to generate a purified thermal gas; removing water and/or light gases from the purified thermal gas; and recovering or further processing the purified thermal gas.

A method for producing syngas from a biomass-CO.sub.2 coupled converter smelting process is provided, including: initiating smelting in a converter by injecting a primary injection gas while simultaneously injecting biomass and a carrier gas; 5-90 seconds after the smelting begins, increasing an injection flow rate of the primary injection gas from 60% to 100% of a designed flow rate, and keeping injecting the carrier gas at the designed flow rate; when an oxygen concentration in the syngas drops to 1%, injecting the biomass at the designed flow rate; in a mid-decarburization period: reducing the injection flow rate of the primary injection gas, and increasing the injection flow rate of the biomass to a maximum value; after a peak decarburization phase: increasing the injection flow rate of the primary injection gas, and decreasing the injection flow rates of the biomass and the carrier gas.