Treatment of biomass gasification tars with non-thermal plasmas

Biomass can be used for power generation and value-added chemical production via biomass gasification and downstream processes. It is necessary to reduce the tar in the product gas for various application processes. For example, the successful use of product gas in internal combustion engines or turbines depends upon successful removal of tar.

In this project, non-thermal plasma was used to reduce the concentration of tar in the product gas, and its performance was analyzed/evaluated at different reaction conditions. In this study, toluene was used as a tar model compound. The effect of reaction parameters such as the residence time and plasma power on tar removal was studied in a tubular dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactor at low temperatures and ambient pressure. It was observed that DBD plasma was an efficient tool to remove/decompose tar compounds in the product gas. The percentage removal of tar increased with an increase in plasma power and residence time to as high as 99% in each carrier gas (CO2, H2, N2 and CO).