Updraft gasification of poultry litter at farm-scale - A case study

N. C. Taupe, D. Lynch, R. Wnetrzak, M. Kwapinska, W. Kwapinski, J. J. Leahy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Farm and animal wastes are increasingly being investigated for thermochemical conversion, such as gasification, due to the urgent necessity of finding new waste treatment options. We report on an investigation of the use of a farm-scale, auto-thermal gasification system for the production of a heating gas using poultry litter (PL) as a feedstock. The gasification process was robust and reliable. The PL's ash melting temperature was 639 °C, therefore the reactor temperature was kept around this value. As a result of the low reactor temperature the process performance parameters were low, with a cold gas efficiency (CGE) of 0.26 and a carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) of 0.44. The calorific value of the clean product gas was 3.39 MJ m-3N (LHV). The tar was collected as an emulsion containing 87 wt.% water and the extracted organic compounds were identified. The residual char exceeds thresholds for Zn and Cu to obtain European biochar certification; however, has potential to be classified as a pyrogenic carbonaceous material (PCM), which resembles a high nutrient biochar.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)324-333
Number of pages10
JournalWaste Management
Volume50
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2016

Keywords

  • Animal waste
  • Auto-thermal gasification
  • Energy recovery
  • Poultry litter char
  • Thermal treatment

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