Evaluation of Pyrolysis and Steam Gasification Processes of Sugarcane Bagasse in a Fixed Bed Reactor

Sugarcane bagasse is the main byproduct of sugarcane mill, readly available at the production site so that it may be a suitable raw material for the production of biofuels, chemicals and electricity. Among the methods that have been widely studied, there are thermochemical processes such as gasification, pyrolysis and direct combustion. The direct combustion is used to produce electricity while the pyrolysis and gasification are used to obtain high value-added products such as bio-oil and synthesis gas (Syngas). In this study, a comparison between the experimental results by pyrolysis and gasification reactions is performed. The pyrolysis and gasification of sugarcane bagasse was carried out, using a laboratory-scale fixed bed reactor in order to produce bio-oil (pyrolysis) and Syngas (gasification). The gasification and pyrolysis were studied and char, tar and gas productions were evaluated as well as the composition of the gas produced. For the pyrolysis, temperature was varied from 500 °C to 900 °C and a quite broad reaction time range was considered. In gasification, the reaction temperature equal to 900 °C, reaction time and steam/bagasse ratio equal 2.0 were evaluated. The behavior for both processes was presented. Moreover, A comparison of experimental results gasification at 900 ° C and SB = 2 with their respective simulation done in Aspen Plus TM . The results show that had great concordance between the experimental results and simulated, obtaining relative errors of 0.907%, 7.196% and 3.197% for the H2, CO2 and CO, respectively.