The produced syngas contains besides the desirable products hydrogen and carbon monoxide interfering substances, which have to be removed from the gas stream. Several Gas Processing steps are necessary to remove these components before the highly sensitive catalyst can synthesize the syngas to chemicals like methanol. Especially sulfur compounds, like hydrogen sulfur, are poison for the catalyst. In case of its deactivation, the efficiency of the syntehsis decreases and the operator has to shut down the gasifier and the syngas treatment plant and renew the catalyst, which takes time and is costly. The syngas treatment prevents the catalyst from deactivation. This section is responsible for a large part of the capital costs. An innovative setup described in [1] can safe operational and capital costs. Therefore, the TU Darmstadt expands its pilot plant with a syngas treatment section. This part of the plant covers:
- Filtration
- Scrubbing
- Compression
- Benzene-Removal
- Sour Gas Removal
The mobile test rigs by RWE are integrated in this setup to investigate indivdually different types of catalysts and gas washing procedures. The configuration is shown in scheme 1.
The TU Darmstadt performs two full-chain test campaigns during the project Lig2Liq. The results are necessary to validate the simulation of the syngas treatment plant.
[1] Hannes J, Liese T (2017) Advanced CtL/CtG technologies for lignite. Fuel 196: 543 549