Energy and exergy analyses of syngas produced from rice husk gasification in an entrained flow reactor

Energy and exergy can be used to evaluate energy sources. The detailed energy and exergy of syngas produced from rice husk gasification in an entrained flow reactor were investigated at various reactor temperatures and equivalence ratios. The results showed that the exergy values of syngas were lower than their energy values and they followed well with the energy values. However, the detailed energy and exergy distributions of syngas were different at various reactor temperatures and equivalence ratios. This indicates that the contributions of gas components to the energy and exergy of syngas are different from gas to gas. Energy and exergy analyses therefore should be conducted appropriately according to evaluation purposes. The results also showed that the highest energy and exergy of syngas were achieved about 10,062 and 7990 kJ per kg of fuel at the reactor temperature of 1000 °C and equivalence ratio of 0.25, respectively. The results obtained from this study can help understand the energy and exergy of syngas produced from biomass gasification as well as thermochemical conversion processes of biomass fuels.