It was a great experience for me to visit ECN between 16-20 July 2018. The purpose of the visit is to co-gasification biomass and plastics for hydrogen rich syngas production. The aim is targeting on the hydrogen rich syngas production by co-gasification of biomass and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with a bubbling fluidized bed reactor. The objective is to investigate the gas productions by co-gasification of beech wood and HDPE with a bubbling fluidized bed reactor at different temperatures, different bed materials, different beech wood to HDPE ratios and steam flows.
Co-gasification of beech wood and HDPE for hydrogen rich syngas have been investigated by using the bubbling fluidized bed reactor in presence of different bed materials (sand, olivine and Y-zeolite). The three steam flows (0, 400 and 800 g h-1), three beech wood to HDPE ratios (1:0, 1:1 and 3:1) and two temperatures (750 and 850 oC) have been investigated for minimum one hour for each experiment to find out the effects on gas productions. The fuel flow was 0.4 kg h-1, beech wood and bed materials were supplied by ECN and HDPE was supplied by UCL. The gas productions were analysed online by using a micro-GC. Neon was added as tracer gas for balances. The raw samples (HDPE and bench wood) and the bed materials before and after reactions will be analysed at UCL. The characterisation of char formed on the bed materials and fresh bed materials including scanning electron microscope, thermal gravimetrical analysis etc. will be further analysed. The further experimental data will be produced at UCL to enrich the results for future publication.
Even though the visit at ECN is very short, the useful results have been obtained with the sufficient help supported by ECN staff specially thanks to Dr. Guadalupe Aranda who helped me with all of the research plan, experimental work and data processing. It was a good opportunity for someone like me normally working at a lab scale reactor to get some experiences on a larger scale reactor. This is also an amazing experience to broad my viewpoint and give me the idea what should the research be progressed in next step. I went to KTH in 2015 for BRISK-1 project which gave me the wonderful experience to meet the talent researchers at KTH, get experiences with different reactors and feel of the different research environment. That is one of the reason why I applied for BRISK-2. The second time to take the BRISK project even more attractive and valuable for me. The facilities at ECN are extremely amazing, all the staff are very professional and friendly. I would like to recommend anyone who works on pyrolysis or gasification area to join in BRISK which is a great opportunity for the early career researcher to gain more experiences and share ideas with talent researchers across Europe.
Figure 1. Photo of Yeshui Zhang working at lab
Figure 2. The WOB reactor at ECN
Figure 3. Gas analysis in progress
Figure 4. Photo of Dr. Yeshui Zhang from University College London, UK with Dr. Guadalupe Aranda from Energy Research Centre Netherlands
Dr. Yeshui Zhang