Composition of producer gas obtained by gasification of pellet mixtures produced with residual lignocellulosic biomass, cork wastes, polymers and polymer derived chars

In this work, the gasification of pellets produced from residual pine biomass and their mixtures with cork wastes, polymeric wastes and polymer derived char pellets was studied. The gasification tests were performed in a fixed bed downdraft gasifier at the temperatures of 700 °C and 800 °C. The influence of pellet combinations and gasification temperature in the composition and high heating value of the product gas was evaluated. The results were compared with commercially available pine pellets. At 800 °C, all the tested pellet mixtures exhibited higher CO and H ₂ concentrations than the commercial pellets, with 9.3% mol CO and 6.2% mol H ₂ for the mixture with cork wastes pellets, for example. The high heating value of the product gas for the different pellet mixtures presented values between 1.04 and 3.84 MJ/m ³ , for different gasification conditions. Residual lignocellulosic biomass and mixed wastes have the potential to be used as sustainable raw materials for energy production by gasification. Gasification operational parameters, such as temperature and equivalence ratio are decisive factors in product gas output, that need to be optimized in order to efficiently take advantage of the energy potential from these raw materials. Furthermore, this approach can contribute to the coupling of waste management and energy production through endogenous resources, reducing the deposition of these waste materials in landfills.