Circulating fluidized bed gasification of biomass for flexible end-use of syngas: a micro and nano scale study for production of bio-methanol

Biomass gasification in circulating fluidized bed gasifiers (CFBGs) is regarded as one of the major options for clean heat and power generation, due to good gas-solid mixing. In this paper, we developed an Aspen Plus model to simulate the methanol production from biomass derived syngas by integrating the bed hydrodynamics and reaction kinetics. Particular emphasis placed on the influence of steam/biomass ratio (S/B), gasification temperature, equivalence ratio (ER), and biomass particle size (BPS) on methanol yield. The simulation results demonstrated that ER and gasification temperature are the most important factors in the process; higher ER and temperature contributed to lower and higher methanol yield, respectively. Model predictions were compared with available data from the literature, which showed fully good agreement.