Production of producer gas from waste cooking oil in a fluidized bed reactor: Influence of low-temperature oxidation of fuel

In this study, fresh soybean oil (FSO) and waste soybean oil (WSO) were gasified with air in a bench-scale fluidized bed reactor equipped with a tar removal system. The objective of this work was to study the effect of the Equivalence Ratio (ER) on gas composition for producing producer gas and tar content. Furthermore, the gas compositions from the gasification of FSO and WSO were compared in order to study the effect of fuel compositional differences caused by low-temperature oxidation of the oil during the cooking process. As a result, it was found that low-temperature oxidation significantly changes the fuel composition which lead to WSO becomes more favorable for gasification reaction producing higher hydrogen and carbon monoxide yield. In addition, with the activated carbon filtration, the producer gas from WSO satisfied the tar requirement (<0.1 g/Nm3) for a syngas power generation engine.