INTRODUCTION
Gasification is a centuries–old thermochemical energy conversion technology that has slowly achieved modernity over the decades. The technology is undergoing its third evolutionary surge. Fuel shortages in WWII spurred widespread adoption for vehicle fuels. The oil crisis 1973 spurred a re–evaluation and renewed development. Rising oil prices, globally increasing fuel demand, and overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change have spurred this last leg to full industrialization.
The central concept of gasification is that by raising carbon–rich materials to high temperatures in an oxygen–deficient containment, the material will break down thermochemically instead of burning. If the same material is combusted (burned), it emits carbon monoxide and a host of pollutants, besides being incompletely consumed. If gasified, the products are hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). This is synthetic gas, simply called “syngas.” It can be burned, captured, stored, or its molecules rearranged to form fuels and chemical feedstocks.
The process is moderately more efficient than incineration, has significantly fewer emissions and waste, and the syngas can be shaped into a myriad of products for power production, chemical industries, liquid fuels, and heat.
Feedstock for gasification can be coal, the organic components of municipal waste, industrial waste streams, chemical feedstocks, forestry residues, forest products and crop residues, medical waste, unrecycled plastic or, in the case of plasma gasifiers, almost any nonradioactive material.
A gasifier is the central component of a gasification plant. Surrounding it are the feedstock conditioning and delivery systems, oxygen, steam and air input systems, waste removal components, syngas cooling and cleaning systems, power plants, heat recovery units, Fischer–Tropsch molecule rearrangers, and so on. This report focuses on the markets for gasifier units that are in place and will be installed by application segment and geographic location through the year 2017.
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