Control of Alkali Species in Gasification Systems: Final Report

Gas-phase alkali metal compounds contribute to fouling, slagging, corrosion, and agglomeration problems in energy conversion facilities. One mitigation strategy applicable at high temperature is the pass the gas stream through a fixed bed sorbent or getter material, which preferentially absorbs alkali via physical adsorption or chemisorption. This report presents results of an experimentalinvestigation of high-temperature alkali removal from a hot filtered gasifier product gas stream using a packed bed of sorbent material. Two getter materials, activated bauxite and emathlite, were tested at two levels of space time by using two interchangeable reactors of different internal diameters. The effect of getter particle size was also investigated.