Untoria, S.; Rouboa, A.; Monteiro, E. Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production from Gasification of Sewage Sludge: Catalonia Case. Energies2024, 17, 1492.
Untoria, S.; Rouboa, A.; Monteiro, E. Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production from Gasification of Sewage Sludge: Catalonia Case. Energies 2024, 17, 1492.
Untoria, S.; Rouboa, A.; Monteiro, E. Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production from Gasification of Sewage Sludge: Catalonia Case. Energies2024, 17, 1492.
Untoria, S.; Rouboa, A.; Monteiro, E. Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production from Gasification of Sewage Sludge: Catalonia Case. Energies 2024, 17, 1492.
Abstract
The continuous tightening of legislation regulating the agricultural usage of sewage sludge in the province of Catalonia (Spain) leads us to propose its gasification to produce hydrogen-rich syngas. A thermodynamic equilibrium model was developed using Aspen Plus® to simulate the air and steam gasification of sewage sludge from a wastewater treatment plant in Catalonia. The syngas generated is analyzed in terms of composition and lower heating value (LHV), as a function of equivalence ratio (ER), gasification temperature, steam-to-biomass ratio (SBR), and moisture content (MC). Results show that air-blown gasification finds the highest LHV of 7.48 MJ/m3 at 1200ºC, ER of 0.2, and MC of 5%. Using steam as the gasifying agent, an LHV of 10.30 MJ/m3 is obtained at SBR of 0.2, MC of 5%, and 1200ºC. A maximum of 69.7% hydrogen molar fraction is obtained at 600ºC, MC of 25%, and SBR of 1.2. This study suggests using steam as a gasifying agent instead of air since it provides a higher LHV of the syngas as well as a hydrogen-richer syngas for the implementation of gasification as an alternative method to sewage sludge treatment in the region of Catalonia. Since the economic aspect should also be considered in this regard, our sensitivity analysis provided important data demonstrating that it is possible to reduce the gasification temperature without significantly decreasing the LHV.
Keywords
Gasification; Syngas; Hydrogen; Sewage sludge; Aspen Plus
Subject
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
