Industrial gasification systems (>3 MWth) for bioenergy in Europe: Current status and future perspectives

This work provides a detailed survey of the current state-of-art, progress and utilization of large-scale gasification systems (>3 MWth) in Europe, and identifies current challenges and future trends. The survey shows that Europe has been active in the implementation and development of large-scale gasification systems, with various trends occurring that reflect the need of new knowledge and cost-competitive technologies. Large-scale gasification processes are becoming increasingly considered for biofuels and biochemicals synthesis and the economy of generating renewable bioproducts from biomass is becoming more attractive than power. However, large-scale gasification plants still entail significant issues (e.g., biomass collection and processing, producer gas cleaning costs) that decrease the projects economic viability and may cause the interruption of operation of existing plants. This study shows that the commercial breakthrough of large-scale biomass gasification must be supported by: high integration of low-cost wastes as co-feedstocks, development of cost-efficient gas upgrading processes, usage of recognized operational strategies from demonstration/industrial plants (e.g., adjusting the availability and accessibility of catalytically active ash components), improvement of governmental policies (e.g., carbon tax increase) and integration of the process in comprehensive biorefinery designs. These aspects are mandatory for biomass gasification technologies to be able to represent an important role in the combat against climate change.