Gasification of coal and press mud blends in fluidised bed gasifier

In line with the clean-energy development program in India an attempt has been made towards utilisation of press mud, a sugar industry waste product, through co-gasification with high-ash coal. Gasification was conducted with the mixture of air and steam at a temperature 1,223 K under atmospheric pressure in a pilot scale fluidised bed gasifier. The operating system and conditions did not allow to increase the press mud content in blends beyond 40 mass %. However, the operations with 10-40% press mud content were successful without the formation of tar or any agglomerate and proper fluidisation was achieved with smooth and controlled variations of temperature, air flow, steam flow rate, etc. In the case of co-gasification of the aforesaid blends, process parameters were identified and operational philosophy was established to improve the overall carbon conversion and other performance parameters over respective coal gasification performance. [Received: February 28, 2017; Accepted: December 21, 2017]