Gasification of wastes: The impact of the feedstock type and co-gasification on the formation of volatiles and char

A gasification pilot plant was built up in order to investigate the influence of both feedstock type and co-gasification on the distribution and composition of the products. The results showed that at the same process condition, different feedstocks could result in different product yields. For instance, the highest gas yield was obtained from tire gasification, while the lowest one belonged to weed gasification. The characterization of the products showed the presence of different components and functionalities in the samples produced. In addition, the co-gasification of the feedstocks resulted in the products with different specifications than single feeding, proving the existence of different reaction pathways. This means that feedstocks and their derivatives could interact with each other and resulted in nonproportional yields and composition for the char, tar, and gaseous products in comparison with the products from the gasification of the single feedstocks. As an example, the tar from co-gasification had a lower content of acids but a higher content of amines and amides. This confirmed that co-gasification influenced the reaction network significantly, impacting the formation of gases, tar, and char, originated from the cross-interaction among the reaction intermediates derived from the pyrolysis/gasification of the various feedstocks.