Pressurized oxygen-blown entrained flow black liquor (BL) gasification, the Chemrec technology, has been demonstrated in a 3 MWth pilot plant in Piteå, Sweden for more than 25,000 h. The plant is owned and operated by Luleå University of Technology since 2013. It is well known that catalytic activity of alkali metals is important for the high reactivity of black liquor, which leads to a highly efficient BL gasification process. The globally available volume of BL is however limited and strongly connected to pulp production. By co-gasifying pyrolysis oil (PO) with BL it is possible to utilize the catalytic activity also for PO conversion to syngas. Adding PO leads to larger feedstock flexibility with the possibility of building larger biofuels plants based on BL gasification technology. This presentation summarizes new results from research activities aimed at developing and assessing the PO/BL co-gasification process. Results from laboratory experiments with PO/BL mixtures show that pyrolysis behavior and char gasification reactivity are similar to pure BL. This means that the decrease in the alkali metal concentration due to the addition of PO in the mixture does not decrease the reactivity. Pure PO is much less reactive. Mixing tests show that the fraction of PO that can be mixed into BL is limited by lignin precipitation as a consequence of PO acidity. Pilot scale PO/BL co-gasification experiments have been executed following design and construction of a new feeding system to allow co-feeding of PO with BL. The results confirm the conclusions from the lab scale study and prove that the co-gasification concept is practically applicable. Process performance of the pilot scale co-gasification process is similar to gasification of BL only with high carbon conversion and clean syngas generation. This indicates that the established BL gasification technology can be used for co-gasification of PO and BL without major modifications.
Godkänd; 2015; 20151116 (erifur)