Experimental study on influence of operating parameters on tar components from corn straw gasification in fluidized bed

Gasification is a promising approach for converting solid fuel sources, including renewable ones like biomass, for use. The main problem in biomass gasification is the formation of condensable tars, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This paper investigated the conversion of tar components during corn straw gasification. It analyzed collected tar components using a gas chromatograph-mass spectrograph (GC-MS). Experimental results indicate that, with increasing temperature from 700°C to 900°C, the concentrations of benzene, indene, phenanthrene, naphthalene, acenaphthylene, fluorene, and pyrene increased whereas those of toluene, phenol, 1-methylnaphthalene, and 2-methylnaphthalene decreased. As the equivalence ratio (ER) increased from 0.21 to 0.34, the concentrations of indene and phenanthrene increased from 0.148% and 0.087% to 0.232% and 0.223%, respectively. Further, the phenol content increased as ER increased from 0.21 to 0.26 and then decreased as the ER increased further to 0.34. Other parameters like the steam/biomass (S/B) ratio and catalyst also played a critical role in tar reduction. This paper demonstrates the conversion of some tar components and elucidates their chemical properties during gasification.