Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery

, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp 261–269 | Cite as

Scrubber liquid recovery in biomass gasification plants: centrifugation as a method for tar separation

  • Laura Malek
  • Christian Hulteberg
  • Helena Svensson
Original Article
First Online:
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Abstract

Many gasification plants use scrubber systems for the removal of tars from producer gas. The cost of the scrubber liquid represents a considerable part of the operating cost, which could be decreased by regenerating the spent scrubber liquid by separating it from ash residues and heavy tars. In this study, different types of spent scrubber liquids were regenerated using a centrifuge. The effect of centrifugation time (1.5–10 min) and sample temperature (50–90 °C) on the separation efficiency was studied. Based on the results, the separation of tars from the scrubber liquids can be ranked as follows: diesel > RME > linoleic acid > linseed oil > rapeseed oil > motor oil. This ranking correlates to the viscosity of the different scrubber liquids, with the separation efficiency increasing with decreasing scrubber liquid viscosity. The best separation efficiency was achieved for scrubber liquids with low viscosity at 90 °C and 10 min of centrifugation time. The results obtained indicate that centrifugation can be used for the regeneration of spent scrubber liquid.

Keywords

Biomass tar Scrubber liquid Centrifugation Regeneration 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Swedish Energy Agency and Meva Energy AB for providing financial support (Project No. 37855-1). Claes Brage is acknowledged for performing the analysis of dissolved tars.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Laura Malek
    • 1
  • Christian Hulteberg
    • 1
  • Helena Svensson
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Chemical EngineeringLund UniversityLundSweden

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