A Fuel Flexible, Process Intensified Gasifier for Mobile Fuels Synthesis

The American military is currently seeking to develop a mobile synthetic fuels plant. This requires process intensification, i.e., extensive reduction in plant weight and size. A key unit operation is at the gasification stage, where both process intensification, and fuel flexibility are sought. The ability to process carbon sources including natural gas, biomass, wastes, coal, crude oil, and petroleum products into synthesis gas is essential. An approach for process intensified, fuel flexible gasification of several such carbon sources has been demonstrated at Eltron The technology is based on partial oxidation of feed by an oxygen carrier which can alternately adsorb oxygen and catalyze partial oxidation of fuels. The proposed system offers significant advantages over conventional gasification and reforming systems in terms of fuel flexibility, reduced size and weight, reduced operating temperature and pressure, elimination of tar or coke deposits, and sulfur tolerance. This project addresses development of a compact gasification system based on Eltron=s cyclic partial oxidation (CycloFormingTM) technology for generating syngas. Phase I will identify catalysts, design and fabricate a bench scale gasifier, and test using appropriate feeds. On the basis of Phase I data, a prototype system will be designed, fabricated, and tested during Phase II.