Coal and Biomass Pyrolysis and Gasification – A Review

In order to advance the research on using new techniques to produce clean and affordable energy, many gasification experiments have been conducted on different feedstocks and the results have been analyzed. Two promising feedstocks which in the future could help to meet the energy demand are coal and biomass. In this paper, we have collected deep insightful information about the processes of coal and biomass gasification and then compared them. The information contained in this paper cover coal and biomass properties, the devolatization process and the reactions occurring during char gasification. The contrast analysis which has been conducted showed for instance that biomass’ higher atomic ratio (H/C, O/C) was the cause of its lower heating value in comparison to coal; carbon conversion values for biomass was significantly higher compared to coal, and during the gasification process, coal feedstock released significantly higher pollutant gases (like H2S) than biomass. In the end, we also presented some innovative technologies that are now developed in the gasification field and which have proven to be highly efficient.