COMPANION WEBSITE
As an accompaniment to this book, we have built a website (www. gasification. higman. de), which includes a number of computer programs arising out of the work involved in preparing this book. They include a complete gasification calculation based on the content of Chapter 2 and also a literature databank with keyword search capability.
TERMINOLOGY
A preliminary word on terminology may be in order. Gasification has a place in many industries, each with its own specific linguistic tradition. Recognizing this, we have not tried to impose our own language on the reader, but have used whatever synonym appears appropriate to the context. Thus the words fuel, feed, and feedstock are used interchangeably without any attempt to distinguish between them. Similarly, oxidant, blast, or gasification agent are used with the same meaning in different places.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank all our friends in the industry who have helped and encouraged us in this project, in particular Neville Holt of EPRI, Dale Simbeck of SFA Pacific, and Rainer Reimert of Universitat Karlsruhe. We would also like to thank Nuon Power and Hydro Agri Brunsbiittel plants for the use of the cover photographs. A complete list would be too long to include at this point, but most will find their names somewhere in the bibliography, and we ask them to accept that as a personal thank you. Chris would also like to thank Lurgi for the time and opportunity to research and write this book. We would both like to thank our extremely tolerant wives, Pip and Agatha, who have accompanied us through our careers and this book and who have meanwhile come to know quite a lot about the subject too.
Finally, we hope that this book will contribute to the development of a better understanding of gasification processes and their future development. If it is of use to those developing new gasification projects, then it will have achieved its aim.
Chris Higman Maarten van der Burgt
Chapter 1
