A study on thermal efficiency of downdraft gasifier (swirl air type)

Arpakorn  Wattana; Pipatpong  Watanawanyoo; Supattana  Nirukkanaporn

Authors

Arpakorn Wattana Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Rangsit University, Patumthani 12000, Thailand
Pipatpong Watanawanyoo Department of Automotive Engineering, College of Engineering, Rangsit University, Patumthani 12000, Thailand
Supattana Nirukkanaporn Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Rangsit University, Patumthani 12000, Thailand

Keywords:

biomass, biomass fuel, bamboo node, downdraft gasifier (swirl air type), producer gas, thermal efficiency

Abstract

This paper presents the analysis of properties of bamboo node, as a potential fuel for gasifiers. Both Proximate and Ultimate Analysis are used. The physical properties of bamboo node contain 5.89% moisture, 70.48% volatile matter, 20.73% fixed carbon and 2.9% ash, while its chemical properties consist of H, C, N, O and S of 5.98, 44.76, 0.11, 46.21, and 0.04%, respectively. The higher and lower heating value of 17,417.09 kJ/kg and 16,161 kJ/kg are evaluated. The properties found indicate that the bamboo node has good potential for biomass fuel application. Besides the property analyses, the bamboo node, as a fuel for gasifiers, is tested in the proposed downdraft gasifier (swirl type), which was developed from the conventional downdraft gasifier. The proposed downdraft gasifier (swirl air type) has a cylindrical furnace, 1.35 m. in length. The combustion zone has two walls – the inner wall in a fireproof mortar and the outer layer consists of a steel sheet. It has a thermal capacity of 4.74 kW. The resulted producer gas from the proposed gasifier consists of CO, CH₄, H₂, CO₂, N₂ and O₂ of 30.0837, 0.2933, 25.1701, 17.0366, 23.955, and 3.4613% by volume, respectively, with thermal efficiency of 70.44%, which is 2.99% higher than that of the conventional downdraft gasifier, because the combustion zone of this downdraft gasifier (swirl air type) is designed by using air inlet circular flow as a nozzle-like injection.

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