Plasma Pyrolysis of Biomass for Production of Gaseous Fuel to Generate Electricity

A RF (radio frequency) plasma pyrolysis reactor was presented in this paper. Application of this reactor to the pyrolysis treatment of biomass at different operating pressures (3000-8000Pa), with various input powers (1600-2000W) was investigated. Interest was focused on the effect of the pyrolysis conditions on the yield of gas and char, the gas composition as well as the quality of the char. On average, the gas yield can reach 66 wt% of the biomass feed at the input power 1800W and operating pressure 5000 Pa. The total content of CO and H₂ in the gas product reached 76 vol.% on a nitrogen-free basis. Thus the utilization efficiency is increased after the biomass is converted into gaseous fuel, which has wider applications such as city gas, burning in utility boilers, gas turbines or gas engines to generate electricity.