Gasification of Crude Glycerin for Liquid Fuel Production

액체연료 생산을 위한 폐글리세린의 가스화 기술 개발

Production and application of biodiesel are expected to grow steadily in the coming years and thus output of its by-product, crude glycerin, will accordingly increase as well. In the present study, gasification of biodiesel by-product as a renewable energy was performed in an entrained flow gasifier to investigate the gasification performance with the operating conditions. Crude glycerin shows a high heating value of 6,000 kcal/kg and low ash and sulphur content. Gasification was conducted in a temperature range of $950\;{\sim}\;1500\;^{\circ}C$. The variation of syngas composition with excess air ratio of 0.17 ~ 0.7 for air or oxygen as a gasification agent was investigated. From the results, syngas heating value, carbon conversion and cold gas efficiency of more than $2500\;kcal/Nm^3$, 95% and 65% were achieved, respectively. The temperature dependency of syngas composition, carbon conversion, and cold gas efficiency shows a similar tendency to excess air ratio at the temperature corresponding to the excess air ratio. The $H_2/CO$ ratio of the product gas was varied from 1.25 to 0.7 with the excess air ratio and this gas composition was favorable for DME synthesis. The optimum excess air ratio for gasification of biodiesel by-product was evaluated to be an approximately 0.35 to 0.4. The present results indicate that crude glycerin can be utilized as a feedstock for gasification to make syngas.