[Gasification] power generation though biomass gasifier

[Doug Williams]

Dear Ed,

You suggest:

> , I would be very interested in seeing someone try
> co-firing a liquid fuel with the biomass.  The liquid fuel could be
> bio-diesel, ethanol, diesel, methanol, or the like.  I don't know of
> anyone to date that has done serious evaluations of this possibility.

Adding any hydrocarbons to a gasification process is unlikely to reduce tar
problems.

 > The thought is that by trickling some uncertain amount of a liquid
> fuel/solvent into the hot gas stream or even onto the fuel prior to
> gasification, you might reduce or eliminate the hot tar precipitates
> and/or their sticky nature that gums up valves, valve guides, lifters
> and the like.

If you put it on the fuel before gasification, then it will all become CO2
in the oxidation zone, and reduced then to CO in the reduction zone. BUT, if
you have  tar in the gas already, then it will only increase the amount of
tar in total.

Then if you put the liquid into the hot outlet gas, it will only condense
along with the aquious condensate as the gas cools, which you have to do to
run an engine.

> A solution along these lines might be workable and proven
> on small scale engine-gen sets and at some point, if proven to any
> extent, might be scaled to larger systems, that will then gain the
> attention of the more mainstream research and funding community.

Always a good idea to test things on a small scale, but the issue of tar in
gas is one of correct design of the gas making process. We all want to take
short cuts to success, but take my word for it, there is no short cut,
unless you con someone into making you a Fluidyne licensee!
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/203/features/6071/energy_to_burn.html

Hope this enlightend your thoughts on addatives.
Doug Williams,
Fluidyne Gasification.