3. General information on supercritical water gasification

3.1 The different biomasses involved

Given that the process operates in pressurized water, it is mainly intended for biomasses that are already highly moist, and which may need to be diluted to reach acceptable mass concentrations at the process inlet. Moisture content is certainly an economic criterion for process selection, but no study to date has given clear and definitive indications as to the choice of thermochemical recovery as a function of moisture content and biomass type. On the other hand, some biomass can be considered "noble", i.e. a direct source of raw material, while others can be agricultural or industrial waste.

Among the noble biomasses, those with a high moisture content are microalgae.