Advanced Solution for TAR TrEatment – ASTARTE

The goal of this joint laboratory is to develop new industrial technologies for the analysis and conversion of heavy organic compounds (tar) and solids (soot) produced in gasification processes.
Solid fuels such as biomass or refuse-derived fuel (RDF) have to be valorised to produce energy (heat and power) in the frame of environmental policies.
For decentralised intermediate power (lower than 25 MW), gasification in fluidised bed is an interesting technology to get higher electrical efficiency than that obtained by combustion followed by steam cycle. Nevertheless, aromatic tars are present in the syngas produced by gasification and they impede the gas combustion in the engines.

To date, no gasification fluidised bed technology is able to produce a clean syngas with a low concentration of tar suitable for gas engine. Therefore it is needed to convert or separate (e.g. by scrubbing) tar from the syngas. In this joint laboratory, we will develop during the first years novel analysis methods of tar and soot and a novel process of tar thermal conversion. Indeed thermal conversion is cheaper and more stable than a catalytic conversion because catalysts are rapidly deactivated during syngas treatment due to coke deposit, attrition, alkaline species (from ashes) deposit, etc.
But thermal (gas-phase) conversion produces soots which represent a loss of carbon and cause the plugging of pipes and filters. The scientific challenge is to better understand and analyse tar conversion in order to reduce soot formation and promote gas formation (CH4, H2, CO). The technological challenge is to develop high temperature reactors which are robust and versatile (i.e. stable and efficient regardless of fuels and tar compositions).

This joint laboratory gathers skills from the public laboratory (Reactions and Chemical Engineering Laboratory –LRGP, UMR 7274 CNRS – Université de Lorraine, Nancy) and from the industrial company (Leroux & Lotz Technologies LLT, Grenoble).
LRPG brings its scientific skills on tar and soot analysis, kinetics and filtration and it also brings its laboratory-scale pilot plant. LLT brings its skills on reactors engineering (design, modelling by Computational Fluid Dynamics - CFD, materials, etc.), its knowledge of the market (through its various industrial units) and its demonstration pilot plant. These various complementary skills and pilot plants (from laboratory to demonstration scales) would be quite unique in Europe and a key step towards innovation in this field.
This LabCom call is the trigger of this collaboration.

This joint laboratory is structured following 2 main research topics:
- topic 1: development of novel analytical methods for tar and soot characterization;
- topic 2: development of a novel process for tar and soot conversion.

All these novel systems will be first developed downstream of the lab-scale fluidised bed gasification reactor of LRGP (TRL 4-5) and then tested on the LLT demonstration plant (TRL 8).