Abstract
In this work, a lab-scale bubbling fluidized bed reactor was used to investigate the effect of operating conditions on the plastic waste gasification process performance. The effect of the equivalence ratio (0.25 and 0.30) and gasifying agent (air and oxygen-enriched air - 35% of oxygen) was investigated by keeping fixed the fluidization velocity (0.4m/s) and the type of the bed material (silica sand, 0.2-0.4mm). The process performance was assessed based on different parameters, such as producer gas heating value, yield of undesired by-products (tar and elutriated fines), carbon conversion efficiency, and cold gas efficiency. To further investigate the effect of the operating parameters, a Material Flow Analysis method was applied. The results indicated that the test with oxygen-enriched air generated a producer gas with the highest calorific value, while the test with air and equivalence ratio of 0.25 produced a gas with the most elevated concentration of tar.
