ABSTRACT
Catalytic hydrothermal gasification is an innovative method to thermochemically convert wet biomass into a gas product consisting essentially of methane and carbon dioxide and recover a clean water by-product. The term “hydrothermal” used here refers to the processing of biomass in water slurries at elevated temperature and pressure to facilitate the chemical conversion of the organic structures in biomass into useful fuels. The process is meant to provide a means for treating wet biomass materials without drying and to access ionic reaction conditions by maintaining a liquid waterprocessing medium. Typical hydrothermal processing conditions are 520-640 K of temperature and operating pressures from 4 to 22 MPa of pressure. The temperature is sufficient to initiate pyrolytic mechanisms in the biopolymers, while the pressure is sufficient to maintain a liquid water-processing phase.
