Studies in Surface Science and Catalysis, volume 159 565 Hyun-Ku Rhee, In-Sik Nam and Jong Moon Park (Editors) © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved Gasification of tire serap and sewage sludge in a circulating fluidized bed with a draft tube B. H. Song" and S. D. Kim? “Department of Chemical Engineering, Kunsan National University Gunsan, Jeonbuk 573-701, Korea (e-mail:bhsong@kunsan.ac.kr) *Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Energy & Environment Research Center, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Korea 1. ABSTRACT Sewage sludge and waste tire scrap were co-gasified at 650 - 850°C in an internal circulating fluidized bed with a draft tube. The effect of bed temperature on the composition of two different product gases from draft tube zone and annulus reaction zone, and on the carbon conversion was investigated. Caloric value of the product gas from gasification of waste tire scrap is 15 MJ/m through the annulus zone at 800°C. Caloric value of the product gas decreases below 5 MJ/m* when wet sludge is co-gasified. The entrainment of fine particles is large especially in the annulus zone for the waste tire gasification. 2. INTRODUCTION Recently an internal circulating fluidized bed system with a draft tube has been studied to sustain two reaction zones in one fluidized bed (1, 2]. A feed gas to one reaction zone may bypass to the other zone through the passage of solids at lower section of bed. Ahn et al. (3] showed that the gas bypassing could be largely reduced by using orifices rather than the gap height as a solids passage. Whereas, gas bypassing from annulus to draft tube is relatively high so that a part of steam should go into draft tube and also some gasification occurs there. A physical gas separator, a baffle over the top of the draft tube can be adapted to reduce the mixing of each gas produced from the two zones. A simple baffle is enough to reduce the separation cost for product stream in the internal circulation system. Nowadays both sewage sludge and waste tire are produced largely in Korea. Fortunately they are normally not mixed with another wastes, it seems to be a promising way to gasify them to produce fuel gas containing hydrogen. To get a basic design data of a waste gasification process, the effect of reaction temperature on the product gas composition and carbon conversion for the gasification of sewage sludge and tire scrap have been determined in a circulating fluidized bed with a draft tube having a baffle gas separator.566 3. EXPERIMENTAL The fluidized bed (0.15 m-i.d. x 2.0 m-high) with a draft tube (0.05 m-i.d x 0.48 m-high) is shown in Fig. 1. Four orifices (0.01 m-i.d.) were evenly spaced along the circumference of the draft tube. The air box comprised two plenums to supply two independent gases to the draft tube and annulus. A baffle was installed right above the top of draft tube to separate two emanating gas streams from the two zones. An electric heater of 3 kW was installed at the wall of the main column to heat the reactor up to ignition temperature of the solid fuel. The mean diameter of the bed particles (silica sand) was 0.4 mm and that of tire scrap was in the range of 0.6 - 1.2 mm. The gas velocity to the draft tube was varied from at 5 to 15 times of minimum fluidization gas velocity (Um). The sewage sludge from the Iksan waste water treatment plant has moisture of 85% as shown in Table 1. The wet sludge was fed to the top of draft tube as a form of droplet with help of a cavity pump. The feed rate of wet sludge was 1.46 kg h'! and that of tire scrap was controlled as 0.7 — 1.5 kg h'. Steam feed rate is up to 1.85 kg h’'. A part of the product gas was continuously transported to gas chromatography for its composition analysis. Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the ICFB gasifier. 1. steam generator, 2. flowmeter, 3. orifice flowmeter, 4. air preheater, 5, gas plenum, 6. draft tube, 7. orifice, 8. gas separator, 9. freeboard, 10. screw feeder, 11. mono-pump, 12. sludge feed nozzle, 13. cyclone, 14. condenser, 15. collector, 16. filter, 17. ID fan. Table 1. Analyses of waste tire and sewage sludge (as received). — Waste tire Sewage sludge Proximate analysis, wt% Volatile 61.7 64 Fixed carbon 33.1 23 Moisture 07 84.5 Ash 45 68 HY, kcal/kg 7087 3115* *: calculated by Dulong’s formula567 4, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Initially, gasification of waste tire scrap was carried out in the reactor. The obtained product gas has higher heat value of 15 MJ/m? from the annulus zone and 4 M4J/m? from the draft tube zone. The product gas from the annulus at 850°C contains up to 15% hydrogen (wet basis). However, the heat value of the product gas decreases below 5 MJ/ m? and content of hydrogen reduced below 5% when the sludge was introduced simultaneously with the waste tire scrap, as can be seen in Fig. 2. This may be due to the fact that the wet sludge contained so large amount of moisture that a portion of heat needed for gasification reaction is spent to vaporize the water. The calculated carbon conversion is found to be quite low below 35% especially for the co-feeding of tire and sludge. The carbon conversion over 42% is obtained in the case of sole feed of tire scrap. Such a low carbon conversion is mainly due to the large entrainment of unburned fine particles of waste tire scrap. The entrainment of fines in the annulus zone should be reduced in the present system. Caloric values (CV, higher heat value) of the product gas from gasification of the waste tire are compared with other studies of coal gasification in Fig. 3. A quite high CV gas can be obtained from the annulus region at 850°C. Whereas, CV of the product gas from the draft tube varies little around 3 MJ/m* that is similar to the value from the conventional fluidized bed coal gasification [4, 5]. Some gasification occurs even in the draft tube combustion zone because the portion of steam fed to the annulus bypasses to draft tube. Fig. 3 also shows the effect of configuration of fluidized bed gasifiers on the product gas. The orifice type provides higher CV gas compared to gap height type as a solid passage between the two zones. This is because the draft tube with orifices can reduce the gas bypass from draft tube to annulus more efficiently [3]. Jang [6] used the same system as the present study for coal gasification. 2 zg a6 Es Ze 3 ze Zeal 8 y 7 = 3 nr) : 22; oz . ‘joe t © * 8 eo see eo mo Te wo ea a CCDC Temperansre °C Tomperstire © # ° go g zo 5” g oe ie £ oe ue j i 5 ! 02 5 8: : os : 3 oe = ‘«o eer a en Temperature ,'C Temperature °C Fig. 2. Performance of the gasification of sludge/tire with variation of temperature (tire feed = 0.77 - 1.1, sludge = 1.46 kg/h, HoO/C = 1.7 - 4.2, OC = 1.35 - 3.19)2 Lee [7HICFB, annie, oa) a Lee [MIVCFB, draft ube) -O~ Jeon ef. [810CFB. gap neigh ype: anrutus) ) TO This stat (CFB, ran, tre) ~ ; Zz a . a el eo 5 . 8 oN 5 a a : | eo ee Temp. °C Fig. 3. Caloric value of the product gas from different fluidized bed gasification systems ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by Energy R&D Management Center for the Ministry of Industry, Resources and Energy, Korea and by KOSEF. REFERENCES [I] R-K. Riley and M. R, Judd, Chem. Eng, Commun., 62 (1987) 151. (2] B.H. Song, Y.T. Kim, and S.D. Kim, Chem. Eng. J., 68 (1997) 115 [3] H.S. Ahn, WJ. Lee, $.D. Kim, and B.H. Song., Korean J. Chem. Eng. 16, (1999) 618. [4] S.K. Foong, G. Cheng, and A.P. Watkinson, Can. J. Chem. Eng., 59 (1981) 625: [S] W.J. Lee, Coal Gasification Characteristics in a Thermo-balance and Fluidized Bed Reactors. PhD Thesis, KAIST, Korea, 1995, [6] Y.W. Jang, Steam Gasification of Bituminous Coal in a Bench-Scale Internally Circulating Fluidized Bed, MS Thesis, Kunsan National University, Korea, 2002. {7] J.M. Lee, Non-catalytic and Catalytic Coal Gasification in an Internally Circulating Fluidized Bed Reactor, PhD Thesis, KAIST, Korea, 1998. [8] S.K. Jeon, Coal Gasification Characteristics in a Circulating Fluidized Bed with Draft Tube, MS. Thesis, KAIST, Korea, 1994. =