Dr. Ajay Kumar

Curriculum Vitae: 

Kumar, Ajay.pdf

More About the Research:
Understanding the Gasification Process to Create Sustainable Biomass Production

Fossil fuels such as petroleum fuels are non-renewable resources and cannot be used on a sustainable basis. Combustion of fossil fuels release trapped underground carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2, which is a greenhouse gas.

The world has increasingly become dependent on petroleum fuels for production of energy, fuel and chemicals. Currently, the U.S. imports two-third of its petroleum needs.

“Replacing a major portion of petroleum need with renewable resources will not only be very beneficial for environment but also improve energy and economic security of the nation,” said Ajay Kumar, Oklahoma State University biosystems and agricultural engineering assistant professor. “ Biomass is a renewable resource that is widely available on a sustainable basis. Using biomass for productions of energy, fuel and chemicals will especially improve economic prosperity of rural regions where biomass will be produced and processed.”

Kumar’s current research focuses on converting wide varieties of biomass available in Oklahoma into a clean, gaseous fuel – called producer gas or synthesis gas – through thermochemical gasification process. The producer gas can be directly used for power generation or it can be converted into chemicals – such as methanol and ammonia – and liquid fuels – such as ethanol, green diesel and gasoline – through microbial and catalytic processes (Figure 1).

“The major advantages of the gasification process are that it can convert most of the combustible biomass components into a producer gas, and producer gas contains comparatively uniform gas mixture, which is much easier to further process into final products as compared to other intermediate products such as bio-oil from pyrolysis of biomass,” Kumar said. “However, there are several major challenges in biomass gasification. First, because of variability in biomass composition and properties, it is difficult to predict and control producer gas composition and gasifier efficiencies. Second, some of the impurities of producer gas cannot yet be removed cost-effectively. Third, producer gas composition such as H2/CO ratio must be further improved to match requirements of its conversion to fuels and chemicals”

The primary goals of the research are to understand the gasification process for using a wide variety of biomass leading to development of robust and predictable systems for productions of energy, fuels and chemicals. Several specific objectives of our research are to:

• Characterize biomass properties for thermochemical conversion, and understand and predict their effects on producer gas properties

• Understand the effects of biomass properties and gasification operating conditions on the producer gas properties, and process efficiencies
• Develop mathematical models to predict producer gas properties for specific biomass and gasification operating conditions, and optimize the process for productions of energy, fuel or chemicals with maximal efficiencies
• Develop cost effective producer gas cleaning systems to remove tar and inorganic impurities
• Understand the effects of various heterogeneous catalysts and reaction conditions in gasifier bed and gas cleaning systems to reduce impurities, and improve composition and yield of producer gas

Figure 1. Schematic for converting biomass into biobased energy, fuel and chemicals through gasification process