Sustainability and Prospects for Gasification Technology

In the last few decades, gasification technology has been proven to be efficient in fulfilling energy demand using a wide range of feedstocks. Gasification technology and processes produce heat and power from products such as biofuel/fuel and syngas. Despite the many advantages of the gasification process, specific challenges create barriers to domestic and commercial use of this technology [1]. Those challenges and barriers globally include feedstock/solid fuel supply chain management, pretreatment of feedstocks, and additional problems in gas conditioning and conversion technology. However, the role of scientific communities in addressing these challenges and improving gasification technology is crucial. Furthermore, based on the study on a regional basis (different countries and states), the government policies and utilization of gasifier products such as flue gas for heat and power generation have been the biggest and continued factors associated with commercialization technology [2, 3]. Many factors mainly determine the sustainability of a gasification technology. To ensure the gasification process has a sustainable future, generic barriers need to be eliminated. Those barriers are classified into institutional, informational, financial, policy, and market. Hence, this chapter explains the modernization of gasification technology, the state of the art in the industrial application of gasification technology, and the fate and role of gasification technology for the next generation to summarize the sustainability of gasification processes. Also, the role and responsibilities of scientific communities for gasification technology protection will finally be provided to assess a better future for this technology in the upcoming years.