[Gasification] Making char vs producer gas

[Tom Miles]

David,

Phoenix Energy in California is generating power and making biochar in two
installations in California at 500 kWe and 1 MWe with Ankur Scientific
downdraft gasifiers.  I don't know if the Ankur gasifiers meet Harrie's
criteria. In the Phoenix case making biochar has not impacted the cost of
gas cleaning. With the large number of Ankur and Ankur look alikes in use
around the world it is likely that char from these gasifiers is increasingly
being used as biochar.   
http://www.phoenixenergy.net/
You can find presentations by Greg Stangl of Phoenix at the US Biochar
Initiative 2013 Symposium session on CHP and Biochar
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/biochar/2013/Scale/4/ You will also find
presentations Olivier Lepez of Biogreen Energy and Lenny Roberts who seeks
to install a Biogen DR gasifier and make char. 

The Biogreen Energy pyrolyzer was demonstrated at USBI Biochar 2010 in Ames,
Iowa. A unit will be installed in Utah. There are currently about 5 in
operation in France and Asia. 
http://www.biogreen-energy.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPzcAmNZQ3g

Updraft gasifiers would be suitable to making char by removing the char
faster than you are consuming it. In that case there is no gas cleaning
because updrafts are normally used for generating heat rather than power. An
example of updraft pyrolysis generating heat and power is the Black Carbon,
where Thomas Harttung uses a Stirling engine for generating power.
http://www.blackcarbon.dk/Contact.aspx  Other systems use ORC, like the
Green Machine by  Electratherm (http://electratherm.com/products/ ) for the
power generation. The gas is not engine quality gas. Char from many
commercial updraft gasifiers is already being used and sold commercially as
biochar.     

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On
Behalf Of David Coote
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 2:04 PM
To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Gasification] Making char vs producer gas

I'm curious about the effects of trying to achieve the multiple objectives
of char production and producer gas. One combustion engineer I've spoken to
who has done a lot of work in gasification stated that from his perspective
char was a sign of an inefficient gasification process. If the inefficiency
is just a reduced yield of producer gas then this might be OK for a
particular application. But if the inefficiency results in a gas that needs
more filtering/volume this may adversely affect the economics.

I haven't found any mixed char and producer gas systems in operation that
meet Knoef's commercial criteria which makes me wonder if detuning the
gasification in favour of char does affect the quality of the gas.

Is anyone aware of mixed char and producer gas systems in operation that
meet Knoef's criteria? Perhaps a good paper that summarises the producer gas
characteristics over a range of char manufacturing percentage?

Thanks

David

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