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Zhenyu Liu
Zhenyu Liu is a Professor of Chemical Engineering in Beijing University of Chemical Technology since 2007. He received a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Pittsburgh (USA) in 1988, then was a post-doctoral research associate at West Virginia University (USA) in 1988-1995, and then a Professor in Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1995-2006.
His research interests include conversion of coal, biomass and heavy organic resources and radical chemistry, calcium carbide synthesis, flue gas emission control, processes by induction heating. He has Published more 200 papers in pear reviewed international journals. He has received the Richard A. Glenn Award from the American Chemical Society, Fuel Division (USA) in 2012, Outstanding Young Scientist Award from Qiushi Sci. & Tech. Foundation (Hong Kong) in 2000, Heritage Prize for Excellence in Creative Activity, Li Foundation, USA (1996), and Outstanding Post-Doctoral Student in Chemical Engineering, American Institute of Chemists Foundation, USA.
Presentation title: Biomass to Syngas and Chemicals by Electric Induction Heating
Abstract: Converting biomass to syngas (or hydrogen) and chemicals is promising for carbon neutrality especially when the whole process is heated by green electricity. Among various electric heating methods, electromagnetic induction heating (IH) is of high efficiency and has been used in a few industries, such as the metallurgical industry, and in household, in the form of induction cookers, but has not been used notably in biomass conversion to syngas (or hydrogen) and chemicals. This talk presents our recent studies on biomass conversion based on IH, including (1) pyrolyzing biomass to syngas in a two-stage under inert and steam atmospheres [1] and (2) reacting pyrolysis-derived biochar with calcium oxide (CaO) for calcium carbide (CaC2) via the newly observed char self-heating by high frequency induction [2,3].
For the biomass conversion, it is found that (1) the heat generation rate in the two-stage reactor by the induction is very high, reaching to ³1000 °C in less than 1 min; (2) more than 94.8% tar can be converted to coke and gas in the second stage in 0.5 s; (3) steam can greatly reduce the tar, bio-char and coke yields and increase gas yield to 0.86 L/g-CS H2 and 0.71 L/g-CS CO. These observations warrant stable operation at larger scales and can be extended to a new route for green H2 production.
For the CaC2 production from bio-char, it is found that (1) coal chars and bio-chars, such as walnut shell-chars (WS-char), prepared from pyrolysis at temperatures ³800 °C can be heated by induction of 400 kHz; (2) the IH behavior of chars is determined by their electrical conductivity that is further related to the structure parameters characterized by XRD and Raman; (3) pellets prepared from WS-char and CaO can also be heated by induction to produce CaC2 through high temperature solid-state reaction.