JOULE JOR3-CT98-0213 Pulsed corona discharge tar cracker for thermally generated biogas (PC-TAC)

Contacts




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JOULE/THERMIE Programme : Thermochemical Conversion

	Type of Project	Shared Cost
	Contract No	JOR3-CT98-0249
	EC Contribution	812 500 ECU
	Start Date	01/06/98
	Duration	36 Months

Objectives
To design, Goal of the project is to offer a specific gas treatment method for thermally generated bio gas. To supply combustion engines or gas turbines it is necessary to clean the bio gas. Contaminants such as tar, NH3, H2S and alkalis are detrimental to machine components and will strongly affect maintenance costs. The proposed method would avoid mechanical filters. It can operate at the high temperature of a gasifier (900 °C) and it is adaptable to varying compositions of input gases and various sizes of bio gas plants. It needs no gas conditioning, has a multiple cleaning effect and avoids any further waste.

Technical approach
An intensive cleaning effect in composed gases can be obtained from the special process called pulsed corona. Pulsed corona is a discharge type that runs reliably at low and at high temperatures in gasses with a wide range of parameters and compositions. It produces a non-thermal high power plasma that liberates electrons and that initiates complex oscillations of molecules, strong UV irradiation and deposition of electrical charges at solid and liquid particles. The high power density and UV radiation lead to a thermal, chemical and photolytical cracking of larger molecules and production of radicals. Additionally there may also be the effect of particle removal similar to an electrostatic gas filter.

Gas coming from the gasifier will pass the gas discharge reactor. If it gets through the electrodes a capacitor will be charged very fast until the start of the breakdown of the interelectrode gap. To get a homogeneous discharge into a gas volume it is necessary to apply a preionisation of the interelectrode gap for example with UV irradiation from a couple of spark discharges. The technology is similar to impulse gas lasers.

Expected achievements and exploitation
In particular expected achievements of the PC-TAC project are :

• development of a compact high temperature purifier for treatment of bio gas from high temperature gasifiers in a temperature range of 600 to 900 degrees C
• integration of a gas purifier prototype into an existing lab-scale thermal 80kW gasifier in Almelo/The Netherlands and into a MW range gasifier being manufactured until the end of the 2nd third of the PC-TAC project,
• the key point will be the reduction of tar to.10% per stage, so that the gas purifier is applicable for combustion engines and turbines.

For future exploitation of the new gas cleaning technology a exploitation board managed by one contractor (Montair Anderson) has been installed. Exploitation of the project results will be possible also at many other gas cleaning applications.

Contacts

Coordinator

• Philipp STRAUSS / Institut fur Solare Energieversorgungstechnik eV GERMANY

Participant

• R. E. ALBERS / ALLTEC Angewandte Laserlicht Technologie GmbH & Co KG / GERMANY
• WILLEMS Philippe / Amylum Group Amycor NV / BELGIUM
• Geert J. ZANSTRA / Convex BV NETHERLANDS
• Bert Van HEESCH / Eindhoven University of Technology High-Voltage and EMC Group / NETHERLANDS
• Fernando TOCI / European Commission Institute for Advanced Materials / ITALY
• A.G.M. VAN DER WEIDEN / Frigem Energiediensten BV NETHERLANDS