Effect of Size of Feedstock on Specific Gasification Rate, Calorific Value of Producer Gas and Gasifier Efficiency

Abstract

High prices of oil and natural gas are leading to an increased interest in "Energy Conservation" technologies such as biomass gasification, meth nation, liquid faction and solidification. Heating systems based on wood, fuel, electricity, coal/lignite are common in some industries. Environmental pollution, poor process control and cost are some of the limitation of these systems. On the other hand biomass gasifier technology offers good efficiency, process controllability economics viability and environmental accessibility. However efficiency and viability of these process is biomass specific. In view of these, it is planned to assess the effect of particle size of fuel on specific gasification rate, calorific value and efficiency. For this purpose wood has been selected as biomass. Nine different sizes of wood materials are selected. The length of the wood is taken as 25 mm, 50 mm and 75 mm where as diameter of wood ranges from 20-25 mm, 25-50 mm and 30-35 mm. It is observed that moisture content, TAR concentration, calorific value, efficiency etc. is highly dependent on feed stock shape and size. It is observed that wood with 50 mm length and 25- 30 mm diameter offers maximum efficiency along with higher calorific value.