Equilibrium modeling of hemp hurd gasification

The aim of this work is modeling a gasification process where a non-conventional biomass is used as fuel: Hemp hurd residues. An equilibrium model of the gasification reaction was implemented in the PhytonTM software environment. Syngas composition, syngas higher heating value, tar production and gasification cold gas efficiency were evaluated at different value of biomass moisture starting from biomass ultimate analysis and reaction equivalence ratio (ER) value. The model is able to predict char and tar production as function of biomass composition, moisture and ER. A comparison with experimental data obtained from hemp hurd gasification was done to validate equilibrium model results. Gasification tests were performed using a low capacity lab-scale gasification reactor designed to use about 1 kg per hour of dry biomass fuel. Results show small errors between model results and experimental result. Several simulations were performed to assess the gasification dependency on selected boundary conditions like biomass moisture and ER of the gasifier