Steam gasification kinetics of biomass char

Biomass gasification includes biomass pyrolysis and steam gasification of biomass chars subsequently. In order to provide basic data for the design of biomass gasification reactor, thermal balance was used to finish steam gasification of biomass char, which was produced at 1273K. Effects of the gasification temperature on the gasification reactivity, the average gasification rate, and the reaction rate were investigated. And the homogeneous model and shrinking core model were employed to obtain the corresponding kinetic parameters. With the increasing temperature, biomass steam gasification reactivity and the average rate increased. The activity energy was 181.24 kJ/mol, the pre-exponential factor was 5.19×105 min-1 with homogeneous model. The activity energy was 192.87 kJ/mol，pre-exponential factor was 1.60×106 min-1 with shrinking core model. Both shrinking core model and homogeneous model can describe the process of biomass char steam gasification well, however, shrinking core model fit the experimental data better than homogeneous model.