State of the art on reactor designs for solar gasification of carbonaceous feedstock

•Advances in solar gasification reactors for carbonaceous materials are reviewed.•Developed designs for direct and indirect irradiated solar reactors are presented.•Registered patents for solar gasification reactors are described.

The association of concentrated solar energy and biomass gasification has often been suggested as an interesting alternative to conventional autothermal processes where a significant portion of the biomass has to be used for heat generation to drive endothermic reactions. It is a clean process able to produce high quality synthesis gas with a higher output per unit of feedstock and that allows for the chemical storage of solar energy in the form of a readily transportable fuel, among other advantages. The present paper describes the latest advances in solar thermochemical reactors for gasification of carbonaceous feedstocks. This work is categorized in this paper into patents and research/journal papers.