CO2 Gasification of Densified Biomass: The Influence of K on Reaction Rate

Abstract

The Boudouard reactivity of metallurgical coke and densified charcoals was investigated in this study. Potassium is known to accumulate in ferromanganese furnaces and hence was evaluated as a catalyst of CO2 reactivity. Samples were impregnated using a gaseous impregnation technique with K2CO3.The reactivity experiments were designed to simulate conditions occurring in an industrial furnace, as used for production of Mn-alloys. To find out the catalytic effect of potassium, the concentration varied from a fraction of a percent up to 5 wt.%. The results show that with increasing potassium content, the CO2 reactivity of coke and charcoal increased, and this change was more significant for coke. The CO2 reactivities of coke and densified charcoal were much closer to each other at the highest content of potassium. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) showed that potassium distributed on the surface as well as on deposited carbon particles formed on densified charcoal.