Mitsubishi Research Institute

Transcription

Gasification is a technology for thermochemical conversion of biomass material Biomass material includes agricultural plant of municipal solid waste or sewage sludge - any carbonaceous material - that is categorised as biomass material. And we do thermal conversion to convert it to fuels. We also apply advanced techniques for purifying the gas and gas cleaning, and this is essential for utilizing the gas produced from the gasification process in energy generation, using turbines or combustion engines. We are carrying large-scale experiments in order to optimize and improve the process of converting the biomass material to fuel gas and in doing this we look at the temperature range for the thermal- chemical conversion, the quality of the product gas in terms of the components and composition and tar content. We're particularly interested in reducing the tar content in the product gas, in order to achieve high-efficiency electricity generation and heat. In progressing the gasification research, we apply advanced reactors, ...type of reactors in small-scales - in range of 10 kilogrammes per hour, up to 400 kilogrammes per hour of biomass feed. The process is carried out in various types of reactors including .... bubbling and circulating types of reactors. Here we have one of the biggest gasifiers - a reactor for converting biomass material into electricity. The gasifier we are operating here would be demonstrating the potentials of this advanced technology and we are looking at supplying heat and energy to the European Bioenergy Research Institute building as well as to the surrounding buildings. One of the great achievements we have reached so far is the development of very advanced computational models to predict the whole thermochemical conversion process which will help to avoid expensive experimental work, and the models we have developed have proven to be very successful in predicting the product gas quality and in optimizing and studying scale-up potentials of the process. The research we carry out here in the European Bioenergy Research Institute has direct impact on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and securing the future supply of energy without the reliance on fossil fuels. Biomass gasification is a proven technology in the lab scale and our interests and my research group are working on taking this process from lab scale into industrial scale. We are interested in taking this process further for processing waste material, particularly paper waste material for example, and sewage sludge material. We particularly are interested in working with companies interested in generating clean fuels and also companies which are interested in processing waste material, particularly the biomass material. We hope in 10 years time from now, the process of biomass thermal-conversion will be fully developed not only in the UK but all around the world especially in the third world countries, where there is a real demand for securing clean and sustainable energy generation.