Gasification of lignite from Polish coal mine to hydrogen-rich gas

Abstract

The efforts of the world research activities involved in clean coal technologies development focus to a considerable extent on integrated hydrogen and power generation technologies based on coal gasification. As an alternative to combustion processes, gasification offers increased efficiency, lower negative environmental impact as well as wider application range of the main product—synthesis gas—in power generation and chemical syntheses. In order to select the most optimal lignite for the purpose of gasification, it is necessary to determine coal reactivity, the key parameter characterizing how fast the fuel reacts with the gasifying medium and controlling its process ability in thermochemical conversion to energy and/or energy carriers. This paper presents the experimental results of oxygen/steam gasification of lignite coal char in a fixed bed reactor under atmospheric pressure and at the temperature of 700, 800 and 900 °C; the samples come from an open pit lignite mine in the southwest of Poland. The effectiveness of the gasification process was tested in terms of the total gas and hydrogen yields, gas composition, carbon conversion rate and chars reactivity.