(167f) Effect of Acid and Alkali On Supercritical Water Gasification of Glucose

Supercritical water gasification, which is the gasification of biomass and biomass component compounds in hot compressed water above critical temperature (647 K) and critical pressure (22.1 MPa) of water,  is expected to be an effective gasification technology for wet biomass.  However, its reaction kinetics is still under investigation.  Especially, char and tarry material formation is a big problem, and its reaction kinetics elucidation is needed.  During the study of glucose decomposition in supercritical water, the authors' group found that some of the reactions behave as Arrhenius reaction rate, and others do not, and dsitinguished ionic and radical reactions.  It was then found that the char formation is ionic reaction.  Char formation was expected to be enhanced by the organic acids produced by glucose decomposition.  If it is the case, addition of acid or alkali should affect the char formation.  In this study, the authors present the results of HCl and NaOH addition on the supercritical water gasification of glucose, clarifying the effect of acid and alkali on the reaction kinetics.