ADVANCED CONCEPTS AND PROCESS SCHEMES FOR CO2 FREE FLUIDISED AND ENTRAINED BED CO-GASIFICATION OF COALS (FECUNDUS)

FECUNDUS was a research project that focused on the co-gasification of coal, biomass and selected wastes with integrated CO2 capture and syngas cleaning. The project consortium included height beneficiaries from Italy, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Austria. Seven work-packages were foreseen dealing with management, dissemination, tailoring gasification schemes for integration with CO2 separation, development of materials for gas cleaning, char upgrading, and CO2 separation. Upon project completion, all tasks were executed and all deliverables produced. Experimental campaigns at different scales proved that both schemes, i.e. entrained flow and fluidized bed, envisaged for co-gasification are feasible under certain conditions. They are effective in order to produce a syngas to be processed for pre-combustion CO2 capture with the studied techniques. Full scale campaigns of co-gasification were successfully carried out. An economic assessment of gasification coupled with CO2 separation was executed on the basis of performances obtained from the experimental tasks. Other innovative outcomes include the development and test of new materials for the process, the integration of gasification with carbon separation for the FB option and the study the flexibility with respect to different feedstock.