Gasification and Effect of Gasifying Temperature on Syngas Quality and Tar Generation

Corrosion, erosion and plugging of the downstream equipments by tar and ash particle and, low energy content of syngas are the main problems of biomass gasification process. This paper attempts to review the findings of literature on the effect of temperature on syngas quality, and in alleviating the tar and ash problems in the gasification process. The review of literature indicates that as the gasification temperature increases, concentration of the resulting H2 and carbon conversion efficiency increase, the amount of tar in the syngas decreases. For the same condition, CH4 and CO concentration do not show consistent trend when the feedstock and gasification process varies. These necessitate the need for conducting an experiment for a particular gasification process and feedstock to understand fully the benefits of controlling the gasification temperature. This paper also tries to propose a method to improve the syngas quality and to reduce the tar amount by using preheated air and superheated steam as a gasifying media for oil palm fronds (OPF) gasification.