Myths & Facts

Feed Moisture

Myth: Gasification is not a good solution or won’t work because biomass is generally wet; the best technical solution is feeding the wet biomass feedstock into the conversion unit.   External drying of biomass is too expensive.  You won't pay an energy penalty by feeding high moisture content feedstock to a gasifier or combustor.

Busted: Any moisture fed to the conversion unit will deplete sensible energy from the flue gas or producer gas that would otherwise go to the intended high-value application.  The price paid for high feed moisture content to a gasifier is reduced hot gas efficiency, in a combustor it is lower overall thermal efficiency.  It is virtually always better to use low-grade heat for drying. 

Heating Value

Myth: Low Btu gas doesn’t burn well, pipelines will be too big, and it requires natural gas sweetening to burn reliably.  Producer gas has insufficient flame temperature.  Low heating value gas significantly increases the flue gas flow rate.

Busted: Advanced burner technologies safely and stably handle heating values 40% lower than the 170 Btu/ft³ typical with air-blown gasification, without any natural gas sweetening or pilot gas.  Frontline delivers producer gas at up to 55 psig allowing smaller pipelines.  Producer gas is also delivered hot, and modest air preheat (500F) can provide producer gas flame temperatures well over 3000F with 10% excess air.  

Feed Handling

Myth: All biomass feedstocks should be handled in the same way; the cheapest way to store them is in a pile.  It is easy to pulverize the biomass.

Busted: Since wet biomass may begin to ferment, it is cheaper to store dry biomass and keep it dry, than it is to re-dry it.  Moist biomass can spontaneously ignite in a pile.  Some biomass materials fibrous qualities makes pulverizing methods impractical. 

Biochar (Torrefaction)

Myth: Adding biomass to coal boilers as biochar mitigates the risks of adding biomass. 

Busted: Biochar is not coal.  Depending on how it is produced, biochar can absorb water (up to 37% MC) and wet pellets can lose integrity.  Biochar contains the biomass ash with alkali and chloride constituents which can cause fouling, slagging, and corrosion problems in boilers.