A kinetic study of steam gasification of char from olive solid wastes and residues from 2nd generation bioethanol production

Steam gasification of char residues from biomass is usually one of the slowest steps in the gasification process and, therefore, fundamental understanding of heterogeneous reaction kinetics is needed. To this aim the object of this study was to investigate the kinetic behaviour of residual biomass chars in an atmosphere consisting of steam and nitrogen. Two chars where studied. The first char (RLChar) was prepared from residues of 2nd generation bioethanol production using reed as parent biomass. The second char (ORChar) was prepared from residues of olive oil production. Isothermal thermogravimetric experiments were performed for two biomass chars in the temperature range from 625°C to 825°C in 50% (v/v) steam atmosphere (N2 as complement). Then, other test at 10% and 20% of steam were performed in order to determine the effect of steam partial pressure.