Testing of a Sludge Gasification Plant at Inland Container's Ontario (California) Mill, 1992 Engineering Conference Proceedings

Field testing of a pulse combustion gasification system was conducted under the sponsorship of U.S. Department of Energy and California Energy Commission to demonstrate the pilot scale gasification of paper mill sludge. The pilot plant with a nominal capacity of 9.1 t/day has been constructed at the Inland Container Corporations’s Recycle Paper Mill in Ontario, California. Several shakedown tests have been conducted on the system in preparation for a long duration test of 500 hours. Results from two major tests are presented in this paper. The first test was conducted with a limestone bed at an average temperature of 710°C, while the second one consisted of sand bed at 788-816°C. Though the limestone bed provided a catalytic atmosphere to enhance hydrogen production, the sand bed was found to be more stable and operationally less problematic. The hydrogen rich (30-50% by volume) process fuel gas has a medium heating value of 14.9-17.50 MJ/m 3.