Air gasi cation of oil palm waste over dolomite in a uidized bed

Abstract

Air gasi cation of oil palm empty fruit bunch was carried out in a uidized bed gasi er. Calcined dolomite was used as the catalytic bed material. The e ect of bed temperature (650{105 $^{0}C$) on the quality of the producer gas was examined. During the gasi cation experiment, a producer gas with improved quality was obtained at high temperatures, but agglomeration of the bed material was realized as the major concern at temperatures above 85$^{0}C$. Thus, the temperature was reduced and the quality of the product gas was assessed through a set of experiments designed by response surface methodology. The bed temperature (T = 650{85$^{0}C$) and equivalence ratio (ER = 0.18{0.28) were selected as the 2 process variables. The experimental results were reasonably tted to the developed model. The optimum conditions were T = 85$^{0}C$ and ER = 0.22 at which the HHV = 5.39 (MJ/$m^{3}$) could be attained without any agglomeration of the bed material.