Air gasification of oil palm waste over dolomite in a uidized bed

Air gasi cation of oil palm empty fruit bunch was carried out in a uidized bed gasi er. Calcined dolomite was used as the catalytic bed material. The e ect of bed temperature (650{1050 C) on the quality of the producer gas was examined. During the gasi cation experiment, a producer gas with improved quality was obtained at high temperatures, but agglomeration of the bed material was realized as the major concern at temperatures above 850 C. Thus, the temperature was reduced and the quality of the product gas was assessed through a set of experiments designed by response surface methodology. The bed temperature (T = 650{850 C) and equivalence ratio (ER = 0.18{0.28) were selected as the 2 process variables. The experimental results were reasonably tted to the developed model. The optimum conditions were T = 850 C and ER = 0.22 at which the HHV = 5.39 (MJ/m3) could be attained without any agglomeration of the bed material