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Pyrolysis and gasification characterization of sewage sludge for high quality gas and char production

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Abstract

A study on pyrolysis, steam gasification, and carbonization-activation was conducted to produce energy and resource from waste sewage sludge. Carbonization-activation is a sequential process of pyrolysis and steam gasification. The experiment was conducted with a batch-type fixed bed reactor. A comparative analysis on the formation characteristics of products, such as gas, tar, and char, was conducted to evaluate the three cases. For sludge char, carbonization-activation showed the largest amount of porosity in the char, and its specific surface area was 80.28 m2/g with an average pore diameter of 6.229 nm. The best adsorption ability of benzene, a light tar, was 175 mg/g. For the producer gas, steam gasification obtained the largest amount of 20.1 L. Similarly, carbonization-activation showed a large value of 16.6 L. Hydrogen and carbon monoxide concentrations were higher in the producer gas due to steam reforming compared with carbonization-activation. Energy yields were 209 kJ and 226 kJ for steam gasification and carbonization-activation, respectively.

The amount of tar formation did not show a significant difference, but the largest one was found in steam gasification. The gravimetric tar amount for steam gasification was 23.5 g/Nm3. However, the selected light tar displayed the lowest concentration for the carbonization-activation. Such concentrations were 2.79 g/Nm3, 0.75 g/Nm3, 0.14 g/Nm3, and 0.14 g/Nm3 for benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, and pyrene, respectively. Therefore, carbonization-activation was found to be the most effective process for producing high quality sludge char and producer gas for utilizing waste sludge into renewable energy and resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BK21 Team for Hydrogen Production · Department of Environmental Engineering, Chosun University, 375 Seosuk-dong Dong-gu, Gwangju, 501-759, Korea

    Young Nam Chun & Dae Won Ji

  2. Frontier Research Center, Tokyo Institute of Technology G5-8, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8502, Japan

    Kunio Yoshikawa

Authors
  1. Young Nam Chun
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  2. Dae Won Ji
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  3. Kunio Yoshikawa
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Correspondence to Young Nam Chun.

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Recommended by Associate Editor Oh Chae Kwon

Young Nam Chun is Professor of Environmental Engineering at Chosun University. His research interests lie in air pollution control of combustion/ incineration systems, with current emphasis on numerical simulation and experimental interrogation, plasma technology for exhaust gas treatment or hydrogen production, and waste-to-energy conversion technology.

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Chun, Y.N., Ji, D.W. & Yoshikawa, K. Pyrolysis and gasification characterization of sewage sludge for high quality gas and char production. J Mech Sci Technol 27, 263–272 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-012-1202-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-012-1202-0

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