Public Deliverables

This document describes the analytical techniques that were used and will be used along the project to perform the characterization of the different raw materials to be used in the gasification process. It includes the description of the techniques used for the characterization of fuels and those necessary to perform the characterization of sorbents. In addition, the full characterization of fuels and sorbents to be used in the project are also reported. It is concluded that the selected fuels can be processed in the available experimental rigs although some difference have been found between the natural biomass fuels and ECOH biomass. Regarding to the sorbents, their behavior has been similar to data found in the literature.

The activity for the production of dimethyl ether (DME) from methanol (CH3OH->CH3OCH3) with different acid based catalysts has been studied. Commercial catalysts γ-Al2O3 and HZSM5 show high activity for the production of DME in the temperature range between 240 and 310 ºC.
An alternative family of acid catalysts based two commercially available heteropolyacids (HPA) based on Si or P (referred to as HSiW and HPW, respectively) supported on carriers such as TiO2, Ce2O3, and BN have been prepared. HPAs display higher activity than γ-Al2O3 and HZSM5, at low reaction temperatures 140-180 ºC, and ambient pressure.

Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 (CZA) catalysts with different Al2O3 content (hence different Cu loading) either promoted (ZrO2, Ga, or Pd) or not have been synthesized, characterized and tested for the methanol production from syngas. Syngas with different CO2/CO ratios (1.9 and 0.5) have been tested. Modules, M= (H2-CO2/(CO+CO2) of 1 or 2 have been tested. In addition, a catalyst based on CoOx/MoOx has also been studied.
CZA catalysts are active for the methanol production from syngas, except for the catalyst with the lowest Cu loading which only displayed activity for the water gas shift reaction (CO+ H2O -> CO2 + H2). The methanol productivity increases with the Cu loading on the catalyst irrespectively of the reaction conditions. Methanol productivity also depends on reaction conditions, T, P, GHSV and CO2/CO ratio. For instance, high methanol productivity is reached when CO2 /CO = 0.5 as compared to 1.9. The addition of promoters does not improve methanol productivity except for ZrO2 at high temperatures.

In this document, all the results and conclusions obtained in the sorption enhanced gasification (SEG) experiments performed at the 30 kWth BFB reactor at ICB-CSIC and at the 20 kWth DFB facility at USTUTT have been reported.

This deliverable reports the results of obtained in our study to identify the optimum catalysts mixture for the direct synthesis of DME (dimethyl ether) from syngas. Two kind of acid catalysts for the DME production from methanol were tested, the commercial catalyst γ-Al2O3 and the supported heteropolyacid HWSi/TiO2 (HPA). For the methanol synthesis from syngas we used a Cu-based commercial KATALCOTM51-8 (referred to as CZA_com). Both catalysts were mixed in m:a (metallic:acid) ratios of 10:90, 50:50 ad 90:10. The DME production from syngas was tested in a fixed bed reactor at 270 ºC, 25-50 bar, 5000-7500 h-1 for the mix with γ-Al2O3 and 7500-15000 1/h for the mix with HPA. The mixture containing HPA was also tested at 240 ºC. Syngas CO2/CO-ratio= 1.9 with M=2 was used.

Within the FLEDGED process, the sorption enhanced gasification aims at the production of a tailored syngas that is optimal for DME synthesis. To fulfill the requirements it needs to have a Module M (M = (H2-CO2)/(CO + CO2)) with a value of 2 and as methane cannot be converted in the DME synthesis, the syngas should also have a low methane content. In this document results from experiments regarding two-stage gasification and the use of an O2-fired burner are presented. For the two-stage gasification experiments, wood pellets and waste pellets have been used as the fuel. The results showed, that a significant reduction of the methane content can be achieved for both fuels when using the two-stage gasification instead of the one-stage SEG process. In the experiments with the O2-fired burner, the influence of different oxygen to fuel ratios on the conversion of methane, the selectivity of H2, CO, CO2 and H2O and the possible heat input into a cracking/reforming stage has been investigated.

In this report, the experimental matrices for SEG and SEDMES tests are presented, determined based on the experience gained on the SEG and SEDMES process at the current stage of the project.
The range of operating conditions defined in the experimental matrices are summarized for SEG and SEDMES processes respectively. The measurements to be carried out in the experimental campaigns are also indicated. The main measurements include gas composition and product yield, solids composition and characterization which will used for defining and validating the FLEDGED process models.

In this report, the updated experimental matrices for SEG and SEDMES tests are presented, determined based on the experience gained on the SEG and SEDMES process at the current stage of the project.

An Aspen Plus model of the reference FLEDGED plant has been developed and used to calculate the mass and energy balance of the plant. Sensitivity analyses on the S/C in the gasifier and on the DME yield in the SEDMES process have been carried out.
Global biomass to DME conversion efficiency (Cold gas efficiency – CGE) of 38-45%LHV combined to biomass to electricity efficiency of 8-11% have been calculated. Resulting “equivalent” CGE (i.e. CGE taking into account the primary energy savings associated to electricity export) of 56-64% have been obtained. Overall results obtained are in line with those reported in the literature for other biomass to DME processes based on air-blown gasification systems. From the economic analysis of a 100 MWLHV biomass input plant, a DME cost of 49.6 €/GJLHV has been calculated, largely associated to the cost of biomass (unit cost of 125 €/t) and from the plant cost (216 M€). From the preliminary techno-economic study presented in this deliverable, suggestions for improving both conversion efficiency and economic performance are proposed.

WP6 deals with risk and sustainability analysis addressing impacts like environmental LCA, safety assessment, appraisal of social issues and air quality in the FLEDGED project. The present deliverable D6.1 defines the goal and scope of the sustainability and process safety analysis of the FLEDGED value chains. It also provides key information necessary for carrying out the task like the organisation, management of WP through working group, boundaries of systems to be studied, functional units, reference technologies for comparison and data framework. WP6 is an interactive and cross cutting WP needing information from all the other WPs. The information may vary from test results on materials, process simulation results, economic analysis, optimization of processes, etc.
The main outputs from this deliverable are (i) the goal and scope, boundaries, reference technologies, functional units along with the data collection framework, (ii) the establishment of working group for effective interaction with other WPs, (iii) preliminary data requirements for the different impact assessments.