Article
Open Access
Effect of steam flow rate on biological sludge gasification
Aimilios StamatoglouDimitra Theodosi PalimeriApostolos Vlyssides∗
School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Heroon Polytechniou Str, Zografou 15780, Greece
Abstract

One of the major environmental issues in industrialized countries is the sustainable disposal of the biological sludge that is daily produced in wastewater treatment plants. This sludge contains a significant amount of non-biodegradable carbon which cannot be utilized in anaerobic digestion. This work explored the feasibility of the thermal decomposition of biological sludge in a steam rich environment and investigated the effect of the steam flow rate on the efficiency of the process. The sludge moisture can be used to replace the water added by the steam reducing the energy consumption of the process. A series of experiments were carried out for the same amount of dried biological sludge at 800 °C under three steam flow rates 4, 9, 16 mL·h-1 in a bench scale semi-batch unit. The gas produced under 9 mL·h-1 steam flow rate by sludge gasification had the highest H2 concentration (63.4%), while the highest concentrations of CH4 and CO were observed in the gas product of sludge gasification under 4 mL·h-1. According to carbon mass balances, the sludge carbon was effectively converted into gas products. It was also proved that the water gas shift reaction was promoted at lower temperatures as the steam flow rate increased. In conclusion, the findings highlight the significant influence of steam flow rate on the quality and quantity of gas obtained from biological sludge gasification. This study suggested a relative simple experimental procedure which can be utilized to determine the best suitable moisture content of the raw material.

Keywords

biological sludge; gasification; stream flow rate; syngas

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