Hybridization of biomass steam gasification in dual fluidized bed reactor with concentrated solar energy

Abstract

Production of syngas from biomass gasification using concentrated solar energy is an attractive technology to produce storable renewable energy and CO2 reduction. Although many solar gasification reactors have been conceptually developed during the last decades, none has reached commercial status yet. Several challenges have hindered the deployment of the technology due to difficulties derived from: high temperature and/or large reactor volume required for complete fuel conversion; producing a steady syngas output independent on solar radiation variation; achieving effective rate of heat supply to the gasifier when scaling-up. In this paper, a new approach to conduct allothermal gasification of biomass with steam using concentrating solar energy with the potential to overcome the aforementioned technical challenges is presented. It is based on the use of solid particles as thermal energy carrier and storage media. The great advantage of this configuration is that the solar receiver and the reactor are uncoupled, while thermal integration is highly efficient since carrier particles are directly used in the reactor. This paper reviews the state of the art of the most important aspects to develop the technology and presents a model to preliminary analyze the performance of the reactor under various configurations.