Gasification of corn cob using non-thermal arc plasma

Published Date
5 October 2015, Vol.40(37):12634–12649, doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.07.111

Author 

C

hangming Du ^,

Jiao Wu

Danyan Ma

Ya Liu

Peipei Qiu

Rongliang Qiu

Shuangshuang Liao

Dong Gao

Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China

Received 27 April 2015. Revised 22 July 2015. Accepted 23 July 2015. Available online 19 August 2015.

Highlights

• A small scale non-thermal arc plasma reactor as plasma generation source.
• •
  It features low energy consumption, rapid start-up time and high productivity.
• •
  The plasma reactor can produce high quality synthetic gas with the high content of H₂ and CO.
• •
  The presence of moisture is favorable for H₂ production.

Abstract 

With high quality syngas consisting almost completely of H₂ and CO, and solid carbon residues with high quality, the plasma treatment technology of biomass has been widely studied with the purpose of generating hydrogen. In this paper, the plasma gasification process of corn cob using non-thermal arc plasma was investigated after comparing various components of biomass, combining the physical truth of agricultural waste. The gas yield can reach 79.0% of the biomass feed without drying conditions at a discharge power of 25.2 W when using nitrogen as carrier gas with energy cost from the decomposition of corn cob is 5328 kJ/kg_H2. Meanwhile, carbon conversion rate of 82.9%, CO selectivity of 39.9% and a ratio of H₂/CO greater than 1.5 are obtained. It is found that different carrier gases have different impacts upon the reforming performance, and air is more beneficial for higher gas yield and CO selectivity. Besides, the presence of moisture is conducive to improve the gas yield, especially the production of hydrogen, carbon conversion rate and the molar ratio of H₂/CO. Also, the varying tendencies of the gas products over the time at different experiment parameters are also discussed. Finally, the results of residual solid products were analyzed.

Graphical abstract

The schematic diagrams of (a) the experimental setup and (b) the structure of non-thermal arc discharge reactor.

Keywords

• Plasma gasification
• Non-thermal arc
• Biomass
• Corn cob
• Syngas
• Residual solid products

---

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

 Table 1

Table 1.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

 Table 2

Table 2.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

 Table 3

Table 3.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 8.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

 Table 4

Table 4.

• ∗ 
  Corresponding author.

For further details log on website :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210784316301553