Abstract

The effect of fuel composition on gasification process performance was investigated by performing mass and energy balances on a pre-pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed reactor fed with mixtures of plastic waste, wood, and coal. The fuels containing plastic waste produced less H₂, CO, and CO₂ and more light hydrocarbons than the fuels including biomass. The lower heating value (LHV) progressively increased from 5.1 to 7.9 MJ/Nm³ when the plastic waste fraction was moved from 0% to 100%. Higher carbonaceous fines production was associated with the fuel containing a large fraction of coal (60%), producing 87.5 g/kg_Fuel compared to only 1.0 g/kg_Fuel obtained during the gasification test with just plastic waste. Conversely, plastic waste gasification produced the highest tar yield, 161.9 g/kg_Fuel, while woody biomass generated only 13.4 g/kg_Fuel. Wood gasification showed a carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) of 0.93, while the tests with two fuels containing coal showed lowest CCE values (0.78 and 0.70, respectively). Plastic waste and wood gasification presented similar cold gas efficiency (CGE) values (0.75 and 0.76, respectively), while that obtained during the co-gasification tests varied from 0.53 to 0.73. View Full-Text