When biomass is heated with little oxygen needed for efficient combustion, the biomass breaks apart into its molecular constituents, or it gasifies, into a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas called synthesis gas, or syngas. This is similar to the process that occurs with wood in a fireplace. As the wood becomes very hot, it gives off its volatile gases – syngas – and it falls apart into a relatively low volume of ash. Because there is an open flame and ample free oxygen, the syngas emitted by wood in a fireplace combusts immediately and produces fire.
Gasification converts carbonaceous materials into syngas, and a biomass gasifier is a system that can gasify biomass such as wood waste, municipal waste, or agriproducts into syngas. Importantly, syngas produced in a biomass gasification process can be converted into liquid fuels and other products through a catalytic chemical reaction called the Fischer-Tropsch process.
GS CleanTech’s biomass gasifier is designed to standardize variable biomass feeds and optimize high yields of high-quality syngas in real-time with greatly increased capital and operating cost efficiencies at smaller scales as compared to traditional gasification technologies. The syngas output of GS CleanTech’s gasifier can either be used to generate heat and power with standard generation equipment or catalyzed into liquid fuels such as ethanol or diesel substitutes with the Fischer-Tropsch process.
GS CleanTech is currently deploying its first commercial scale biomass gasification system and anticipates using the technology to add to the corn to clean fuel conversion efficiency by gasifying the remaining 16 pounds of defatted DDG and using the resultant syngas to generate electricity to offset virgin power consumption and to produce additional clean fuels with the Fischer-Tropsch process.
GS CleanTech’s pricing model for its biomass gasification technology has not yet been finalized.
