Preliminary analyses on an algae-based water scrubber for syngas cleaning

Aim of this work is to try to put together the two worlds of syngas filtering and syngas upgrading trough the use of a water-algae water photo-bio-scrubber. The system studied consists of a 10 kWel downdraft gasifier provided with a water scrubber where the syngas is bubbled in a solution of water, nutrients, algae and artificial light (. The heat provided by the syngas keeps the scrubber to the proper temperature where tars are condensed and algae can grow at proper rate. At the same time the CO2 content in the gas can be, in part, converted into biomass by the algae. From the scrubber it is disposed a multi-phase liquid composed of water, biomass, tars and char. The first analysis carried out in this work consisted in a two phases process of the gas. First, in the gasification system, part of the gas was derived into a simple water scrubber where all the flows where measured and the temperature was kept constant at 30 °C. Then the water obtained in such a way was used as basis for algae grown in lab conditions. Results shown the capability of such a system to be used in existing gasification facilities.