Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy (2020) 22:613–625 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01804-y ORIGINAL PAPER Impacts of slurry and dry forms of low‑rank coal (lignite) on quality of syngas produced Imran Nazir Unar 1  · Ghulamullah Maitlo 2  · Suhail Ahmed Soomro 1  · Shaheen Aziz 1  · Syed Abdul Karim Shah 2  · Rasool Bux Mahar 3  · Zulfqar Ali Bhatti 1  · Mohammad Safar Korai 4 Received: 4 November 2018 / Accepted: 20 December 2019 / Published online: 3 January 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Gasifcation is one of the prominent and technically efcient technologies for converting solids like coal, biomass or solid waste into useful gas known as “syngas.” Several confgurations are in use today among which entrained fow gasifers have several advantages over other confgurations. Presently research is more focused on micro-level modifcations in the confgurations which have a signifcant impact on overall performance of gasifcation. Scant, literature is available for com- parison of slurry over dry form of feedstocks, especially with low-grade coals. Hence, present research aims to establish a concrete fnding regarding the impacts of slurry versus the dry condition of coal on the overall performance of gasifcation. To achieve this goal, a two-dimensional computational fuid dynamic (CFD) model of downdraft gasifer was developed in commercial CFD software FLUENT for performing numerical simulations with indigenous coal feedstock. Rich oxidant conditions (95% oxygen and 5% nitrogen) were maintained in the gasifer for the gasifcation. The performance of gasifca- tion was measured by comparing efciencies of gasifcation and the quality of syngas produced with diferent coal forms. As per simulation results, coal forms and operating conditions caused a signifcant efect on overall gasifcation performance. In syngas composition, H 2  mol fraction reached at maximum, when the slurry form of coal was used for gasifcation. This efect is remarkable for generating hydrogen-rich fuel from lignite without consuming steam externally. * Ghulamullah Maitlo metlo2696@yahoo.com 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan 2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan 3 U.S-Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Water, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan 4 Institute of Environmental Engineering and Management, Mehran UET, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan