Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Engineering Campus, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, 50229 Semarang, Indonesia
Bioresour Technol, 2013 Dec;150:328-37.
PMID: 24185417 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2013.10.010

Abstract

This study focused on improving the producer gas quality using radio frequency (RF) tar thermocatalytic treatment reactor. The producer gas containing tar, particles and water was directly passed at a particular flow rate into the RF reactor at various temperatures for catalytic and thermal treatments. Thermal treatment generates higher heating value of 5.76 MJ Nm(-3) at 1200°C. Catalytic treatments using both dolomite and Y-zeolite provide high tar and particles conversion efficiencies of about 97% on average. The result also showed that light poly-aromatic hydrocarbons especially naphthalene and aromatic compounds particularly benzene and toluene were still found even at higher reaction temperatures. Low energy intensive RF tar thermocatalytic treatment was found to be effective for upgrading the producer gas quality to meet the end user requirements and increasing its energy content.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.