Low temperature catalytic steam gasification of waste palm trunk by pottasium carbonate supported on perovskite oxide

Abstract

A waste palm trunk was used as raw materials of derived biochar in catalytic steam gasification experiments. Pre-treatment was done to enrich the carbon content and removed the heavy and light tar. Waste palm trunk has been added in pyrolysis reactor to produce biochar at temperature 550°C under N2 flow. The experimental ran in a bubbling fluidized reactor at atmospheric pressure by the steam as gasification agent and Nitrogen as a carrier gas with different catalysts such as K2CO3 / LaMn0.8Cu0.2, K2CO3 / Alumina, Alumina and K2CO3 respectively. The experiments have been carried out to investigate the effect of gasification temperature, effect of catalyst and effect of catalyst ratio to biochar on the carbon conversion into syngas. The syngas compositions were analyzed by gas chromatography. K2CO3 / LaMn0.8Cu0.2 catalyst showed the better carbon conversion as compared to the other catalysts. Perovskite oxide was more effective as a support for the gasification catalyst. The results showed that the better carbon conversion ratio within short time gasification and removed heavy and light tar. K2CO3 / LaMn0.8Cu0.2 showed high activity for biochar gasification at low temperature and good recovery property near 750°C.