Barriers of commercial power generation using biomass gasification gas: A review

Gasification is one of the promising technologies to convert biomass to gaseous fuels for distributed power generation. However, the commercial exploitation of biomass energy suffers from a number of logistics and technological challenges. In this review, the barriers in each of the steps from the collection of biomass to electricity generation are highlighted. The effects of parameters in supply chain management, pretreatment and conversion of biomass to gas, and cleaning and utilization of gas for power generation are discussed. Based on the studies, until recently, the gasification of biomass and gas cleaning are the most challenging part. For electricity generation, either using engine or gas turbine requires a stringent specification of gas composition and tar concentration in the product gas. Different types of updraft and downdraft gasifiers have been developed for gasification and a number of physical and catalytic tar separation methods have been investigated. However, the most efficient and popular one is yet to be developed for commercial purpose. In fact, the efficient gasification and gas cleaning methods can produce highly burnable gas with less tar content, so as to reduce the total consumption of biomass for a desired quantity of electricity generation. According to the recent report, an advanced gasification method with efficient tar cleaning can significantly reduce the biomass consumption, and thus the logistics and biomass pretreatment problems can be ultimately reduced. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.