Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Journal journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cej Optimised production of tailored syngas from municipal solid waste (MSW) by sorption-enhanced gasifcation Isabel Martínez ⁎ , Gemma Grasa, Maria S. Callén, Jose Manuel López, Ramón Murillo Environmental Research Group, Instituto de Carboquímica (Spanish National Research Council, ICB-CSIC), Miguel Luesma Castan 4, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain HIGHLIGHTS • Sorption enhanced gasifcation is successfully demonstrated for a MSW-based fuel. • Gasifcation temperature is the variable that most infuenced syngas composition. • CaO carbonation infuences H2/CO/CO2 proportion depending on the temperature. • Biomass conversion is successfully correlated with temperature and residence time. • Tar composition and yield are evaluated for diferent temperatures and CaO excess. ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Waste to chemicals/fuel Municipal solid waste Steam gasifcation In-situ CO 2 removal CaO Bubbling fuidised bed ABSTRACT Sorption-enhanced gasifcation (SEG) is a promising indirect gasifcation route for the production of synthetic fuels since it allows the H 2 , CO and CO 2 content of the resulting syngas to be adjusted. This SEG process has been successfully demonstrated at pilot scale for lignocellulosic biomass and other agricultural and forest waste products, mainly focusing on H 2 -rich gas production. Within this work, the potential application of the SEG process to a material derived from municipal solid waste (MSW) as feedstock is experimentally demonstrated in a 30 kW th bubbling fuidised-bed (BFB) gasifer. The infuence of the sorbent-to-biomass ratio, steam excess and gasifcation temperature has been carefully analysed in order to understand their efect on SEG performance. Moreover, main conditions able to afect the resulting syngas composition, specifcally in terms ofH 2 , CO and CO 2 content, have been indicated. Gasifcation temperature turned out to be the variable that most infuenced syngas composition due to the limiting mechanisms associated with the carbonation of the CaO used as bed material. This operating variable also determined biomass conversion, together with solids residence time in the gasifer, resulting in a wide variation of fxed carbon conversion under the studied conditions. Finally, tar yield and composition were evaluated as a function of temperature and the sorbent-to-biomass ratio used, resulting in tar contents as low as 7 g/Nm 3 (dry gas), consisting mainly of 1-ring aromatic compounds. 1. Introduction Waste disposal is one of the biggest problems faced by humankind. In 2018, 251 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) was pro- duced in Europe, which corresponded to an average of 489 kg of MSW per capita in the same year [1]. The trend in recent years has been to reduce the amount of MSW produced as well as reducing its disposal in landflls (from 145 to 57 million tonnes between 1995 and 2018), while increasing the percentage that is fnally incinerated, recycled or turned into compost. However, despite these eforts, there was only a 6% de- crease in the MSW produced in European countries between 2008 until 2018 [1]. Based on these numbers, the most recent European Union action plan has stressed the importance of MSW in enhancing the de- velopment of a circular economy, not only through the use of and re- duction of waste, but also by making MSW into products that will not be turned back into waste again [2]. In this sense, the waste-to-chemicals valorisation route may be a potential alternative to landflling or in- cineration, which represented 23% and 28%, respectively, of the MSW generated in Europe in 2018 [1], and thus play an important role in the circular economy. This conversion route could also have important advantages in terms of cost savings compared to the production of chemicals and fuels from alternative sources of biomass, since MSW requires collection and disposal regardless [2]. Moreover, it would re- duce and fnally do away with the need to use fossil fuels for the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.126067 Received 7 May 2020; Received in revised form 22 June 2020; Accepted 23 June 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: imartinez@icb.csic.es (I. Martínez). Chemical Engineering Journal 401 (2020) 126067 Available online 29 June 2020 1385-8947/ © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/). T