Co-useof organic herbal residue and red mud waste for syngas production by chemical looping gasification

Tremendous amounts of organic residue from manufacturing herbal medicines and inorganic red mud waste from mining bauxite ores are landfilled each year in China. To study the potential for their beneficial co-use, chemical looping gasification (CLG) was tested in which the organic residue was used as the fuel and the red mud was the oxygen carrier that is needed for CLG. Parametric testing was performed using a thermo-gravimetric analyzer and a bench-scale fluidized bed reactor to optimize CLG operations that could maximum syngas production, enrich H(2)concentrations and obtain effective conversion of the residue. Physical and chemical characterization of the organic residue and red mud before and after CLG testing showed that some filamentous ash from the organic residue remained on the surface after testing, and potassium from the organic residue migrated onto the surface of the oxygen carrier. The characterization and testing results suggested that CLG may be an advantageous technology to effectively convert an organic waste into syngas and an inorganic waste into a usable product, thereby establishing an approach for beneficial waste resource utilization.

Automated summary

The study found that chemical looping gasification technology can effectively convert organic waste into syngas and inorganic waste into usable products, providing a new method for the utilization of waste resources.