Cornstalk steam gasification for syngas in a two-stage electromagnetic induction reactor

To make full use of renewable electricity (green power) and construct a biomass-to-syngas (H2 + CO) process for zero-carbon chemicals production, this paper investigates steam gasification of cornstalk (CS) in a two-stage reactor to syngas. The reactor couples high-temperature CS pyrolysis and steam gasification of CS char in the first-stage and then steam reforming of the volatiles and their condensation product coke. The first- and second-stage are heated to temperatures higher than 1000 °C by electromagnetic induction via an iron rod and steel nets, respectively. The experiments are carried out at different induction power, steam pressure, gasification temperature and time, and the yields of syngas, char, oil (tar) and coke are analyzed. It is found that 88.7 wt% CS can be converted to syngas in 5 min at the first-stage temperature of 1202 °C and the second-stage temperature of 1157 °C under a steam pressure of 70 kPa. The syngas yield is composed with 857.7 and 713.8 mL/g-CS H2 and CO, respectively. The yields of char, coke and oil are only 0.4, 2.9 and 0 wt%, respectively. The process can be extended to other biomass and is promising for green syngas or H2 production due to its simple scheme and high productivity.