The Gasification of Marine and Coastal Resources for Syngas Production: A Review

Coasts are home to one-third of the human population. In the process of energy transition, local biomass and waste resources represent a renewable fuel that can substitute fossil fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hence including marine resources as part of the eligible feedstock for renewable energy production. Gasification regroups different technologies that aim to convert a solid fuel into a useful gas, and has several applications, such as heat production, power generation, and chemical synthesis. Gasification technologies regroup the traditional “dry” processes that use relatively dry fuels, but recent developments have been made with “wet” processes such as hydrothermal gasification, in sub- or supercritical conditions for the water, which can accept wet fuel. This review focuses on scientific articles that performed gasification of marine resources in order to produce a syngas. First, a definition of marine resources is made, followed by the presentation of marine resources studied in the literature. Secondly, this review presents the different types of gasification reactors and their operating conditions, followed by a summary of the different syngas produced with their composition as a performance indicator. Finally, this review exposes the limitations of the current literature and concludes with perspective propositions.