Catalyst development for the gasification of biomass in the dual-bed gasifier Original Research Article

A dual-bed gasifier system combined with catalysts was evaluated in the catalytic gasification of cedar wood at low temperatures (823–973 K). The dual-bed gasifier consisted of a primary-bed section for pyrolysis of biomass and separation of pyrolyzed gas and tar from solid products and a secondary-catalytic tar reformer. Catalyst development was carried out on the basis of Rh/CeO2/SiO2, which has been developed for the higher conversion of carbon to gas and higher yield of CO+H2+CH4. We have also carried out the optimization of reaction conditions. Especially, the tar derived from maximum of 250 mg biomass/min can be totally converted to the gas product by 3 g catalyst in this system using ER=0.25 of total carbon present in the biomass. This performance was much higher than that over commercial steam reforming catalyst. In addition, the amount of coke deposited on Rh/CeO2/SiO2 was much smaller. In the dual-bed system combined with excellent catalysts, almost all the tar can be converted to syngas at lower temperature than that needed by the conventional method with high energy efficiency.