The purpose of the facility is to enable developers with an interest in producing fuels, chemicals, and energy from biomass to test and evaluate unit operations without having to purchase and install a pilot facility. The gasifier will be operated on a cost recovery basis and could be used for public and/or proprietary research and development.

The facility could also be beneficial to users who would like to evaluate and validate gasification and fuels production technology based on their own feedstocks. Thus fuels production technology can be installed and tested based on user demands.

The Argonne facility will provide a combined gas production and utilization opportunity that can be applied across a range user project, including but not limited to process development, process modeling, gas cleaning/ upgrading process development, testing of synthesis gas for applications, fuel synthesis and chemicals production.

The gasifier unit processes ~0.5 ton/day of feedstock. The gasification system consists of modular unit operations that can be integrated to meet users’ needs. Design specifications have flexibility to expand or change as the scale of the gasification system needs to be adjusted to future end users.

The system consists of a feed handling unit; an indirectly-electrically heated pyrolytic gasifier; and a gas handling subsystem. The unit als includes a reciprocating internal combustion engine generator set for electric power production from cleaned syngas as well as a hydrogen slip stream extraction system. Infrastructure to pipe syngas into the high-bay is in place.