Performance of a Nickel-Activated Candle Filter for Naphthalene Cracking in Synthetic Biomass Gasification Gas

The concept of a ceramic candle filter for high-temperature gas filtration, catalytically activated with nickel using a deposition−precipitation method with urea, was introduced to perform the simultaneous removal of tar and particles from hot biomass gasification gas. Tar cracking over nickel-activated ceramic filter substrates was studied with a synthetic biomass gasification gas (free of H 2 S and dust) under industrial hot gas filtration conditions. Naphthalene was used as the model compound for high-temperature biomass gasification tar. The main parameters investigated were reaction temperature (750−900 °C), gas velocity (2.5−6 cm/s), and catalyst loading (0.5 and 1 wt % nickel). It was found that when typical filtration gas velocities are used, naphthalene can be completely converted mainly to syngas (H 2 and CO) at 800−900 °C over activated filter substrates with a catalyst loading of only 1 wt % nickel.