Method For The Production Of Synthesis Gas

Abstract

Disclosed is a process for the production of synthesis gas by plasma gasification of solid and/or liquid carbon-containing or hydrocarbon-containing material comprising the steps: (i) providing a solid and/or liquid feedstock comprising particulate carbon- or hydrocarbon-containing material or a mixture of both, (ii) providing a carrier gas and combining this with the solid or liquid feedstock, (iii) feeding said solid or liquid feedstock and said carrier gas as a feed stream into a reactor comprising a reaction chamber or into a vaporizer which is arranged upstream to said reactor, (iv) introducing a swirl gas into the reactor which swirls around the feed stream and covers the interior walls of the reactor, (v) treating said feed stream downstream the introduction of the swirl gas into the reactor with a hot plasma to generate a product stream comprising synthesis gas from said carbon- or hydrocarbon-containing material in the reaction chamber, (vi) removing the product stream from the reaction chamber, and (vii) separating the solid ingredients from the gaseous ingredients of the product stream.

Claims

1. A process for the production of synthesis gas by plasma gasification of solid and/or liquid carbon-containing or hydrocarbon-containing material comprising the steps: (i) providing a solid and/or liquid feedstock comprising particulate carbon- or hydrocarbon-containing material or a mixture of both, (ii) providing a carrier gas and combining the carrier gas with the solid and/or liquid feedstock, (iii) feeding the solid and/or liquid feedstock and the carrier gas as a feed stream into a reactor comprising a reaction chamber or into a vaporizer which is arranged upstream to the said-reactor, (iv) introducing a swirl gas into the reactor which swirls around the feed stream and covers the interior walls of the reactor, (v) treating the feed stream downstream the introduction of the swirl gas into the reactor with a hot plasma to generate a product stream comprising synthesis gas from the carbon-containing or hydrocarbon-containing material in the reaction chamber, (vi) removing the product stream from the reaction chamber, and (vii) separating the solid ingredients from the gaseous ingredients of the product stream.

2. The process according to claim 1, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock is selected from the group consisting of biomass, coal, hydrocarbons, organic matter, municipal waste, polymers, cellulose-containing materials, lignin-containing materials and mixtures thereof.

3. The process according to claim 2, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock comprises lignin or a lignin-containing material.

4. The process according to claim 1, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock used has a mean particle diameter between 0.01 mm and 10 mm.

5. The process according to claim 4, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock used is a water-dry.

6. The process according to claim 4, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock used is a water-containing feedstock.

7. The process according to claim 1, wherein the carrier gas is air or water-vapor containing air.

8. The process according to claim 1, wherein the swirl gas is an inert gas.

9. The process according to claim 1, wherein the swirl gas is air or water-vapor containing air.

10. The process according to claim 1, wherein the solid and/or liquid feedstock is guided through a vaporizer which is arranged upstream to the reaction chamber.

11. The process according to claim 1, wherein the plasma is a microwave generated plasma.

12. The process according to claim 11, wherein the microwave generated plasma is within a pressure range between 1 and 5 bar.

13. The process according to claim 1, wherein a particulate carbon-containing material or a particulate hydrocarbon-containing material is fed from a storage vessel via a transportation means, is combined with air as a carrier gas, and is introduced into the top of a vertical reactor tube.

14. The process according to claim 1, wherein a carbon-containing material or a hydrocarbon-containing material is comminuted before introduction into the reactor and/or wherein the material is humidified by adding water or wherein the water content of the material is reduced by drying said material.

15. The process according to claim 1, wherein the feedstock gas stream and the carrier gas-stream are introduced into a vertical tubular reactor through a feedstock feeding means and through a carrier gas feeding means which are installed at the top of the tubular reactor, downstream of the feedstock feeding means and of the carrier gas feeding means the swirl gas is introduced into the tubular reactor through a swirl gas feeding means and downstream to the swirl gas feeding means the gas streams are treated by a hot plasma.

16. The process according to claim 1, wherein the product stream after treatment with the hot plasma is subjected to rapid cooling.

Description

EXAMPLES

[0088] The examples which follow are intended to illustrate the subject matter of the invention without restricting it thereto.

[0089] Feedstock composition examples are presented in the following table 1.

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Example feedstock compositions Ex. 1 Ex. 2 Ex. 3 Ex. 4 Molar Pure Clariant Clariant Cellulose Composition (%) Lignin raw raw lignin I lignin II C 61.68 47.5 47.5 44.7 H 5.58 6 6 6.31 O 26.93 31.3 31.3 48.75 N 1.29 1.2 1.2 0.19 S 2.06 0.1 0.1 0.01 Ash 2.19 13.9 13.9 0.04 Mean particle 75 400 100 50 size (m) Moisture (wt-%) 3.03 3 3 0.94

Example Methods of Use

[0090] The feedstock compositions of Examples Ex. 1 to 4 can be gasified by using the following exemplary gasification conditions.

TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Example gasification conditions Ex. 1 Ex. 2 Ex. 3 Ex. 4 Ex. 5 carrier flow (Nl/min) 5 5 5 7.5 10 swirl flow (Nl/min) 30 25 20 27.5 25 total Flow (Nl/min) 35 30 25 35 35 air/N2-ratio (volumetric) 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 solid feed (g/s) 0.13 0.11 0.09 0.13 0.13 comment base overall flow flow ratio case variation variation

[0091] The gasification described in table 2 has been carried out in a gasification reactor with the following set-up:

[0092] Biomass enters the reactor via the top with a carrier gas. The reactor is a vertically arranged inner tube. Inside the reactor a swirl gas is blown in via a set of nozzles to centrifugally contain the plasma. The plasma is energized with a microwave field contained in a waveguide. Contacting the plasma with the biomass converts the biomass feedstock into syngas. Ash and unconverted solids are collected below the reactor, while the gaseous products exit the reactor through an outer tube which envelops the inner tube. The gaseous products are processed through simple gas cleaning, then the gas is conditioned for offline GC analysis.

[0093] The following table shows the N.sub.2-free transient results for fast start-up and steady state conditions.

TABLE-US-00003 Time H.sub.2 CO CO.sub.2 O.sub.2 CH.sub.4 [Seconds] [Mol-%] [Mol-%] [Mol-%] [Mol-%] [Mol-%] 30 0.29 0.29 0.00 0.43 0.00 60 0.33 0.47 0.07 0.13 0.00 90 0.25 0.50 0.13 0.13 0.00 120 0.25 0.50 0.19 0.06 0.00 150 0.28 0.50 0.17 0.06 0.00 180 0.30 0.50 0.15 0.05 0.00

[0094] In the following table the N.sub.2-, O.sub.2- and CH.sub.4-free composition of synthetic gas product stream after gasification using feedstock material of Ex. 2 from table 1 and using gasification conditions from table 2 is shown.

TABLE-US-00004 TABLE 2 gasification conditions H.sub.2 CO CO.sub.2 H.sub.2/CO.sub.2 [Mol-%] [Mol-%] [Mol-%] Ex. 1 38.0 53.0 9.0 0.72 Ex. 2 34.7 50.3 15.0 0.69 Ex. 3 41.3 53.0 5.6 0.78 Ex. 4 36.6 55.7 7.8 0.66 Ex. 5 31.2 50.0 18.7 0.62