Biomass Combustion with in Situ CO 2 Capture by CaO. II. Experimental Results

Experiments to test the concept of biomass combustion with in situ CO 2 capture by CaO have been conducted in a 30 kW interconnected fluidized-bed test facility. The CO 2 capture efficiency in a combustor–carbonator reactor was measured over a range of operating conditions, using three biomass feeds (olive pits, saw dust, and pellets). Overall CO 2 capture efficiencies higher than 80% were achieved with sufficiently high solids circulation rates of CaO and solids inventories in the combustor–carbonator. Emissions of CO and CH 4 were detected during the experiments, possibly because of pulse feeding and/or an inappropriate air/fuel mixture. The application of a simple reactor model for combining biomass combustion and CO 2 capture allows an effectiveness factor of 0.74 to be derived for all of the experiments. This could be valuable for scaling-up purposes.