JP7707794B2 - Biomass Processing Equipment - Google Patents

Description

This disclosure relates to a biomass processing device.

Patent Document 1 discloses a technology for obtaining tar-free synthesis gas by treating biomass at temperatures between 500°C and 800°C, and then treating the tar in the synthesis gas at temperatures between 1200°C and 1600°C.

Patent No. 5606624

According to the technology described in Patent Document 1, a high-temperature heating furnace is required to process the tar at a maximum temperature of 1600°C. This poses the problem that a large amount of energy is required to process the tar.

This disclosure has been made to solve these problems, and aims to provide a biomass processing device that can reduce the energy required for tar processing.

The biomass treatment device in this embodiment is
A gas generating unit that performs plasma treatment on biomass to generate gas;
A catalyst layer is disposed above the gas generating section and configured to purify tar contained in the gas;
a gas reforming unit disposed above the catalyst layer and reforming the gas that has passed through the catalyst layer by a plasma treatment;
Equipped with.

This disclosure provides a biomass treatment device that can reduce the energy required for tar treatment.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a biomass treatment apparatus according to a first embodiment.

EMBODIMENT 1
The present invention will be described below through embodiments of the invention, but the invention according to the claims is not limited to the following embodiments. Furthermore, not all of the configurations described in the embodiments are necessarily essential as means for solving the problems.

The biomass processing device according to the first embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing the configuration of the biomass processing device 1 according to the first embodiment. The biomass processing device 1 is a device that performs plasma processing on biomass (e.g., food waste) to generate gas, and then performs plasma processing on the tar contained in the gas.

The biomass processing device 1 is equipped with a vacuum chamber 10 for performing plasma processing. The inside of the vacuum chamber 10 is depressurized so that the plasma processing is performed under low vacuum conditions. The biomass processing device 1 also includes a vacuum pump (not shown) for depressurizing the vacuum chamber 10, and a high-voltage power supply for plasma (not shown).

The vacuum chamber 10 includes a gas generating section 11, a catalyst layer 12, a gas reforming section 13, and an exhaust port 14. The vacuum chamber 10 includes three chambers, a lower chamber, a middle chamber, and an upper chamber, which are referred to as the gas generating section 11, the catalyst layer 12, and the gas reforming section 13, respectively.

The gas generating unit 11 generates gas by plasma processing the biomass. The gas generating unit 11 includes an upper electrode 111, a lower electrode 112, and a wall 113. The upper electrode 111 may have through holes that allow gas to pass toward the catalyst layer 12 described below. This allows the gas to move more efficiently to the catalyst layer 12.

The upper electrode 111 is disposed above the biomass 20. The biomass 20 is placed on the lower electrode 112. The lower electrode 112 may be configured to be detachable from the vacuum chamber 10. This allows the biomass 20 to be supplied into the vacuum chamber 10 using the lower electrode 112 as a dish.

The gas generating unit 11 applies a voltage between the upper electrode 111 and the lower electrode 112 under reduced pressure conditions. This generates a plasma 31 (also called a gas generating plasma) between the upper electrode 111 and the lower electrode 112. The biomass 20 is pyrolyzed by the heat of the plasma 31, and gas is generated. The gas contains tar. The gas moves in the direction indicated by the white arrow. In other words, the gas rises toward the catalyst layer 12, which will be described later.

The gas generating unit 11 and the gas reforming unit 13 described later generate plasma using nitrogen remaining in the vacuum chamber 10 and hydrogen generated from the biomass 20. Therefore, there is no need to supply reactive gas into the vacuum chamber 10.

The catalyst layer 12 includes a catalyst 121 and a wall 122, and is disposed above the gas generating unit 11. The catalyst layer 12 purifies the tar contained in the gas generated by the gas generating unit 11. The gas that passes through the catalyst layer 12 moves in the direction indicated by the white arrow. In other words, the gas rises toward the gas reforming unit 13, which will be described later.

The catalyst 121 is heated by the plasma 31 and the plasma 32 described below. This allows the catalyst 121 to remove tar from the gas more efficiently. In other words, the biomass processing device 1 can reduce the energy required compared to when the catalyst 121 is heated separately.

The catalyst layer 12 may be disposed between the upper electrode 111 of the gas generating section 11 and the lower electrode 132 of the gas reforming section 13 described below. This allows the catalyst 121 to be heated more efficiently via the upper electrode 111 and the lower electrode 132.

The gas reforming section 13 is disposed above the catalyst layer 12. The gas reforming section 13 reforms the gas that has passed through the catalyst layer 12 by plasma processing. The gas reforming section 13 includes an upper electrode 131, a lower electrode 132, and a wall 133. The lower electrode 132 may have through holes that allow the gas from the catalyst layer 12 to pass through. This allows the gas to move between the upper electrode 131 and the lower electrode 132 more efficiently.

The gas reforming unit 13 applies a voltage between the upper electrode 131 and the lower electrode 132 under reduced pressure conditions. This generates a plasma 32 (also called gas reforming plasma) between the upper electrode 131 and the lower electrode 132. The heat from the plasma 32 causes the gas to be pyrolyzed and tar is removed. As a result, the gas reforming unit 13 generates gas from which the tar has been removed.

The exhaust port 14 discharges the gas that has been tar-treated by the gas reforming unit 13. Since the gas has been tar-treated, the discharged gas can be used in a generator, etc.

The biomass treatment device of the first embodiment performs plasma treatment on biomass to generate gas, and then plasma modifies the gas. By placing a catalyst layer at a position where it is heated by plasma, tar treatment can be performed with less energy.

The biomass treatment device of the first embodiment performs plasma treatment when generating gas from biomass, and uses plasma modification for tar treatment. Therefore, it can be configured compactly using a single vacuum chamber.

In addition, when low-pressure, low-temperature steam is used for gas reforming, it is necessary to heat the pipes and furnace to maintain the gaseous state when supplying the steam into the chamber, but in embodiment 1 where plasma reforming is performed, there is no need to heat the pipes, etc. In addition, when using the technology described in Patent Document 1, a high-temperature heating furnace and a coke recovery and supply device are required, but in embodiment 1 where plasma reforming is performed, a high-temperature heating furnace and a coke recovery and supply device are not required.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and can be modified as appropriate without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 Biomass treatment device 10 Vacuum chamber 11 Gas generation section 111 Upper electrode 112 Lower electrode 113 Wall 12 Catalyst layer 121 Catalyst 122 Wall 13 Gas reforming section 131 Upper electrode 132 Lower electrode 133 Wall 14 Exhaust port 20 Biomass 31, 32 Plasma

Claims (4)

A gas generating unit that performs plasma treatment on biomass to generate gas;
A catalyst layer is disposed above the gas generating section and configured to purify tar contained in the gas;
a gas reforming unit disposed above the catalyst layer and reforming the gas that has passed through the catalyst layer by a plasma treatment;
Equipped with
The gas reforming unit removes the tar contained in the gas that has passed through the catalyst layer by using heat of plasma.
Biomass processing equipment. Each of the gas generating unit and the gas reforming unit includes an upper electrode and a lower electrode,
The catalyst layer is disposed between an upper electrode of the gas generating section and a lower electrode of the gas reforming section.
The biomass treatment device according to claim 1 . The upper electrode of the gas generating section and the lower electrode of the gas reforming section have through holes through which the gas passes.
The biomass treatment device according to claim 2 . The biomass is placed on a lower electrode of the gas generating section,
The lower electrode of the gas generating unit is configured to be detachable from the vacuum chamber.
The biomass treatment device according to any one of claims 1 to 3.