This is a very advanced gasification gas cleaning process. It has been studied, developed and/or applied to biomass gasification in fluidized bed. The core or basis of this application is the use of steam-reforming monoliths downstream from a fluidized bed biomass gasifier. These monoliths can be obtained nowadays from some EU manufacturers such as BASF. The monoliths (catalysts) convert and/or transform the unwanted tar, as well as most of the CH4, the small hydrocarbons (C2 and C3), and the NH3 present in the gasification gas into H2, CO and N2. The gasification gas is then cleaned of tar and NH3.The chemical energy contained in the tar is also transferred to the gasification gas. Tar content in the cleaned gasification gas of 150mg/Nm3 has been achieved by using these monoliths. The great advantage of using these honeycomb structures for gasification gas cleaning is that they accept a gasification gas with particulates in it, avoiding then the use of high temperature filters which could become plugged/ clogged by coke formed from tar cracking in their pores.
The key aspect to have a feasible overall gasification process is the life of the monolith. A high life, no deactivation, of the monolith can be obtained if the upstream gasifier has a good design and operation. An optimised partitioning or distribution of the total air flow used in the whole gasification plant is also important to have/ obtain a good performance of the gas cleaning monolithic reactor.
After five years of testing a one-layer based monolithic reactor, a new, more advanced, 2nd generation, two-layers based, monolithic reactor was tested at small pilot plant scale. It provided excellent results.
This gas cleaning technology can be also applied to fixed bed gasifiers and to other types of feedstocks such as sewage sludge, coal, RDF and plastics from MSW.