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Ftwi Yohaness Hagos 1 and A. Rashid A. Aziz 1 and Shaharin Anwar Sulaiman 2
Academic Editor:Nadir Yilmaz
1, Centre for Automotive Research and Electric Mobility (CAREM), Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
2, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
Received 16 September 2013; Accepted 17 November 2013; 30 January 2014
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
Scarcity of conventional petroleum resources and advancement in the solid-to-gas conversion technologies has revived interest in the use of solid fuels. Among the conversion technologies, gasification is the most reliable and energy efficient with advantages in both upstream and downstream flexibility [1]. It is a thermochemical conversion process that increases the hydrogen-to-carbon ratio of the feedstock by breaking carbon bonds and adding hydrogen to the gaseous products [2]. When high carbon solid fuel reacts with a controlled amount of gasifying agent at an elevated temperature of more than 600°C, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2 ) are formed as depicted in (1). The process is called gasification and the produced gas is called syngas. This process consists of many reactions and details about the gasification process can be found elsewhere [2]. This conversion process is believed to be the major source of energy in the future, and instrumental in the move from carbon based to hydrogen based energy [1]: [figure omitted; refer to PDF]
Syngas, an abbreviation for synthesis gas, is an end product of gasification. This is a name given for a mixture mainly comprised of CO and H2 at varied proportions. It also consists of other gases like methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide apart from these major gases. It can be produced from different feedstock like coal, liquid hydrocarbons, biomass, and other waste products and the quality varies depending on the feedstock and the gasification process. The name "syngas" is a general term for any gasification product. However, different names were used for different products at different times in the past such as town gas, water gas, producer gas, and blast furnace gas [3].
The gasifying...