TITLE: Wheat Straw Gasification by Bubbling Fluidized Bed Reactor

Energy is a strategic input necessary for socio-economic development. It helps in meeting

basic human needs. In fact energy propels the society. The standard of living is correlated with
per capita energy consumption. The sources of energy are renewable and non-renewable ones.
The fascination of renewable energy is that it is not dwindling, rather non-depleting and that it
does not damage environment rather it contributes towards a hazard-free safe environment.
Renewable energy sources have proven their reliability and competitiveness in comparison with
conventional sources of energy.
The rapid depletion of petroleum fuels and their ever increasing costs have led to an
intensive search for alternative fuels. This research has been accelerated after the 1973 oil
embargo. As per one of the study within 40 years, the present reservation of the petroleum fuel
including diesel will deplete at an increased consumption rate estimated to be order of 3% per
annum.
The new emerging technology of gasification is a demand of time. A large number of
research works for fuels by gasification have been carried out particularly in the USA, Canada
and EC. Recently the Asian countries like Malaysia and India have given their attention towards
this technology. The results of these researches have proved their feasibility of this technology.
Amongst various thermochemical conversion processes, gasification is considered as an
emerging technology for liquid oil production. Gasification for energy conversions from the
carbonaceous material is defined as the incomplete combustion of organic matter in the presence
of 1/5 to 1/3 theoretical amount of oxygen for complete combustion to produce gasses.
Among the various organic feed materials, biomass is one of the most abundant
renewable energy sources in the world. Biomass is actually a product of solar energy that has
been stored by the photosynthetic activity of plants. The plants remove CO
2
from the atmosphere
and combine it with water to produce biomass. Biomass is in many common waste products,
such as:
1. agricultural waste
2. forest waste
3. municipal waste
4. food processing waste
Conversion of solid biomass into combustible gas has all the advantages associated with
using gaseous and liquid fuels such as clean combustion, compact burning equipment, high
thermal efficiency and a good degree of control. In locations, where biomass is already available
at reasonable low prices or in industries using fuel wood, gasifier systems offer definite
economic advantages. Biomass gasification technology is also environment-friendly, because of
the firewood savings and reduction in CO
2
emissions. Biomass gasification technology has the
potential to replace diesel and other petroleum products in several applications, foreign
exchange. Currently biomass contributes on average 14% of total energy demand of the world.
The relative proportions of the gasification products depend on both process parameters
as well as the composition of the feedstock. The most important process parameters are the
operating temperature, feed particle size, equivalence ratio, steam to biomass ratio, and the
presence of catalyst. The physical and chemical constituent of the feedstock such as volatile,
moisture and ash contents also affect the product yield. Other process parameters such as the
feed rate, gasification atmosphere and operating pressure have also been reported to have some
influences on the product yields.
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For this study wheat straw will be used as the feed material for gasification. As a prairie
province, Saskatchewan's economy is associated with agriculture, however increasing challenges
has meant that agriculture, fishing, hunting and forestry together make up 6.8% of the province's
GDP. Saskatchewan grows 45% of Canada's grain. Wheat is the most known crop here, and
perhaps the one stereotypically associated with the province. Hence it is appropriate to use wheat
straw as feed for gasification.
Among the various gasification technologies, fluidized bed technology is one of the best
gasification technologies. Here intimate mixing and contact between reactants increase the heat
and mass transfer and reduces time of reaction, plant size and power required. The advantages of
the fluidized bed reactor are as follows:
1. Higher throughput
2. Improved heat and mass transfer from fuel
3. High heating value
4. Reduced char
5. Simple ash removal
6. Most high-ash content fuels can be gasified
7. Suitable for biomass, municipal solid waste and lignite
8. Can be operated on different types of fuels or mixture of fuels
There is a bubbling fluidized bed in the University of Regina which will be used for the
experiments. The objectives of the study are:
1. To study the physical, elemental and thermal characteristics of wheat straw
2. To study the literatures about gasification
3. To design the experiments.
4. To do the leak test and heat test for the reactor and to check the hopper.
5. To do some commissioning if required.
6. To do some pre-experimental runs.
7. To carry out the experimental investigations at different process conditions.
8. To analysis the product gas through GC
9. To analyze the data that will be obtained by experiments.
So far step 1 to step 6 is done. But some commissioning and the pre-experimental runs are
required and step 2 is also required more. This commissioning is regarding the solid state relay
of the air heater controller.

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