Air-steam gasification of municipal solid wastes (MSWs) for hydrogen production

Gasification process can be considered as a partial thermal oxidation, which results in the production of a mixture of useful gases (CO, H₂, CH₄, and other gaseous hydrocarbons), little quantities of carbon black (char), ash, and several organic impurities (tar). In this study, we introduced an artificial neural network (ANN) model to simulate the influence of operating conditions on the concentration of products during the gasification process of municipal solid wastes (MSW). Results showed when increasing the residence time, more char is gasified, leading to an increase in the greenhouse gas emissions. It is also found that a further increase in the residence time results in a constant rate of products due to the heat and mass transfer limitations.