A research on the determination of the gasification performance of grass pellets

Abstract

The gasification is the process of converting fuels which mainly contain hydrocarbon such as coal, petroleum, biomass, and solid wastes, into syngas which have combustible gases mixture such as CO, H2, CO2, and CH4 by partial oxidation. In this research, grass pellets were gasified in two different equivalent air coefficients of ER= 0.26 and ER=0.39, and gasification performances of pellets were determined. Gasification was carried out in a micro-scale gasification system in the gasification laboratory of the biosystem engineering department. Performance values as a result of gasification obtained at ER = 0.29 and ER = 0.36 equivalent air ratios are as follows: Biomass fuel consumption rates (FCR) were 8.6 kg/h and 6.5 kg/h. The lower heating values of the syngas were 3831.7 kJ/Nm3 and 3925.5 kJ/Nm3.The gas output rates (GFR) were calculated as 10.01 Nm3/h and 9.23 Nm3/ h. The amounts of syngas produced per unit biomass (GMb) were 1.57 Nm3/kg and 1.96 Nm3/kg. The thermal efficiencies of gasification process were 39% and 50%. During the gasification process, the temperature at the core zone varied between 700-800 oC. The performance values obtained as a result of gasification of grass pellet were compared with the performance values obtained from the previous studies on the gasification of biomass. It has been observed that the performance values obtained with 0.36 of equivalent air ratio (ER) are closer to the performance values obtained in previous studies. © 2020 Namik Kemal University - Agricultural Faculty. All rights reserved.