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Reported in the article is further progress in the development of the novel pulsed detonation gun (PDG) technology for the conversion of organic wastes into syngas in a two-component gasifying agent (GA) containing ultra-superheated steam and carbon dioxide obtained by pulsed detonations of a natural gas–oxygen mixture at a frequency of 1 Hz. Experimental studies were carried out on a waste converter with a 40 dm3 flow reactor and two PDGs with a total volume of 2.4 or 3.2 dm3, which is approximately a factor of 6 and 4.5 less than in previous studies, respectively. The objective of the research was to find the design and operation parameters of the waste converter that provide a minimum amount of CO2 in the gasification products. Waste machine oil was used as a feedstock. It is shown that, compared with the earlier experiments with a higher average temperature of the reactor wall and with a PDG of a much larger volume, the contents of H2, CO, CH4, and CO2 in the syngas remained virtually unchanged, whereas the efficiency of the gasification process increased significantly: the use of 1 g of natural gas made it possible to gasify up to 4 g of the feedstock. It is also shown that the determining role in the gasification process of liquid feedstock is played by the feedstock residence time in the PDG rather than in the reactor. The minimum ratio between the flow rates of the GA and liquid feedstock, the minimum ratio between the flow rates of combustible gas and liquid feedstock, as well as the actual GA consumption in the gasification process are determined experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pulsed detonation (PD) gun technology was applied for the autothermal high-temperature conversion of natural gas and atmospheric-pressure oxygen-free allothermal gasification of liquid/solid organic wastes by detonation-born ultra-superheated steam (USS) using two flow reactors of essentially different volume: 100 and 40 dm3. Liquid and solid wastes were waste machine oil and wood sawdust, with moisture ranging from 10 to 30%wt. It was expected that decrease in the reactor volume from 100 to 40 dm3, other conditions being equal, on the one hand, should not affect natural gas conversion but, on the other hand, could lead to an increase in the gasification temperature in the flow reactor and, correspondingly, to an increase in the product syngas (H2 + CO) quality. The PD gun was fed by natural gas–oxygen mixture and operated at a frequency of 1 Hz. As was expected, complete conversion of natural gas to product syngas in the PD gun was obtained with H2/CO and CO2/CO ratios equal to 1.25 and 0.25, irrespective of the reactor volume. Liquid and solid wastes were gasified to H2, CO, and CH4 in the flow reactors. The steady-state H2/CO and CO2/CO ratios in the syngas produced from waste machine oil were 0.8 and 0.5 for the 100-dm3 reactor and 0.9 and 0.2 for the 40-dm3 reactor, respectively, thus indicating the expected improvement in syngas quality. Moreover, the maximum mass flow rate of feedstock in the 40-dm3 reactor was increased by a factor of over 4 as compared to the 100-dm3 reactor. The steady-state H2/CO and CO2/CO ratios in the syngas produced from the fixed weight (2 kg) batch of wood sawdust were 0.5 and 0.8 for both reactors, and the gasification time in both reactors was about 5–7 min. The measured H2 vs. CO2 and CO vs. CO2 dependences for the syngas produced by the autothermal high-temperature conversion of natural gas and atmospheric-pressure allothermal gasification of liquid/solid organic wastes by USS at f = 1 Hz were shown to be almost independent of the feedstock and reactor volume due to high values of local instantaneous gasification temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology of a pulsed detonation gun for gasification of organic waste with ultra-superheated steam has been experimentally demonstrated for the first time. Experiments were performed on natural gas conversion as well as on the gasification of liquid (waste machine oil) and solid (wood sawdust) waste by hot detonation products of natural gas–oxygen mixture at a frequency of detonation pulses f = 1 Hz. Periodic release of detonation products to a 100 L flow reactor provided a time-averaged mean temperature and pressure in the reactor at about 1200 K and 0.1 MPa. It is shown that the technology of a pulsed detonation gun can provide complete (100%) natural gas conversion to syngas containing H2 and CO with a H2/CO ratio of 1.25. During the gasification of liquid and solid wastes, the total volume fraction of combustible gases (H2, CO, and CH4) in the product syngas was 80 and 65% with H2/CO ratios of 0.8 and 0.5, respectively. Comparison of the experiments on natural gas conversion and liquid/solid organic waste gasification under the same conditions at f = 1 Hz showed that the composition of the product syngas in terms of H2 and CO content almost did not depend on the type of used feedstock. The estimated ideal energy gain defined as the ratio of the total energy of product syngas to the energy spent in its production from dry wood sawdust is about 4.6, i.e., the pulsed detonation technology of biomass gasification is economically very attractive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]