Preliminary results on the ash behavior of peach stones during fluidized bed gasification: evaluation of fractionation and leaching as pre-treatments

Peach stones comprise a valuable agroindustrial by-product that is available in many countries of the World and especially in the Mediterranean region. A number of important advantages such as its high energy value, the low ash content in combination with the absence of transportation costs due to the fact that is produced in agro-industries, make peach stones an ideal fuel for energy production via gasification. Gasification tests were performed in a lab-scale fluidized bed gasifier in order to study the behavior of peach stones and especially its ash during the gasification process. Apart from the tests with the initial peach stone samples, gasification tests were performed using peach stones that had been pre-treated using two different methods fractionation and leaching. Pre-treatments used in order to study their effect on the beneficiation of the materials ash and on the avoidance of ash-related problems such as deposition, agglomeration and corrosion during the gasification process. A water-cooled steel tube placed vertical to the flow of the gasification gases was used in order to collect samples of ash deposits that were analyzed using SEM-EDX analysis techniques in order to assess the effect of the pre-treatment techniques on the peach stones ash behavior. The produced results showed that peach stones can be used as gasification feedstock without significant ash problems. Fractionation resulted in a deterioration of the ash behavior of the material, increasing the amounts of alkali metals and chlorine included in its ash, while leaching showed a positive effect but to a moderate extent. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.