Recent Development of Thermo-chemical Conversion Processes with Fluidized Bed Technologies

Increasing of energy demand due to the rapid growth of global population and the development of world economy has inevitably resulted in the continuously increase of fossil fuel usage in the world. However, highly dependence on fossil fuels has necessarily brought about critical environmental issues and challenges such as severe air pollutions and rapid global warming. In order to settle these environmental and energy problems, clean energy generations in the conventional combustion processes have widely adapted in the world. In particular, novel thermochemical conversion processes such as pyrolysis and gasification have rapidly been applied for generating clean energy. Fluidized bed technologies having advantages such as various fuel use, easy continuous operation, high heat and material transfer, isothermal operation, and lower operation temperature are widely adopted and used because they are suitable for thermochemical energy conversion. The latest research trends and important findings in the thermo-chemical conversion process with fluidized bed technologies are summarized in this review. Also, the need for research such as layered materials and substances to reduce fine dust (biomass, natural resource waste, etc.) was suggested. Through this, it is intended to increase interest and understanding in fluidized bed technology and to present directions for solving future challenges in fluidized bed process technology development.