EXPERIMENTAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A BATCH FEED BIOMASS GASIFIER SYSTEM FOR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

Biomass is a very important source of energy in many parts of the world, especially for areas remote from supplies of high quality fossil fuels. Through the process of gasification, biomass can be converted into producer gas, which mainly comprises of H 2 and CO. The process biomass gasification treats the solid feed material in a gasifier such that virtually all of it is converted into gas, which has a calorific value of 3-5 MJ/Nm 3 . One of the processes of gasification is the batch feed system, whereby material is added in batch every now or so. After cleaning, this gas can be used to run small internal combustion (IC) engines, boilers, process heaters etc. This system is cheaper compared to continuous flow system. However, there are many problems associated with such batch system of producing uniform gas-flow with constant calorific value. This study is involved in designing an air blown downdraft gasifier system and characterizing the process occurring within it (e.g. temperature) as well as the output (e.g. gas calorific value and flow rate). Application of the gas, produced from the gasifier, on a 20 kW reciprocating IC engine is studied with an electrical load of 12 kWe. Particular attention is given on cooling and cleaning system to provide quality of gas for such application.