High-temperature air/steam-blown gasification of coal in a pressurized spout-fluid bed

The concept of high-temperature air/steam-blown gasification technology for converting coal into low-caloric-value gas for power generation is proposed and evaluated experimentally. Preliminary experiments are performed in a 0.1 MW thermal input pressurized spout-fluid bed gasifier. The influences of the gasifying agent preheat temperature, the gasification temperature and pressure, the equivalence ratio, the ratio of steam-to-coal on gas composition, gas higher heating value, carbon conversion, and cold gas efficiency are examined. The experimental results prove the feasibility of high-temperature air/steam-blown gasification process. The gas heating value is increased by 23%, when the gasifying agent temperature is increased from 300 to 700 degrees C. For the operation conditions studied, the results show that gasification temperature is the most important factor influencing coal gasification in the spout-fluid bed. The gasifier performance is improved at elevated pressure mainly due to the better fluidization in the reactor. The operating parameters of the equivalence ratio and the ratio of steam-to-coal exist at optimum operating range for a certain coal gasification process.