• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.50 no.4
• /
• pp.89-97
• /
• 2008

A downdraft gasifier was manufactured for biomass gasification. The gasifier was designed based on the principles of gasification presented in previous studies. The pipes of 25mm diameter were used for both supplying air and discharging producer gas. Wood charcoals were mostly used for fuels. The concentration of CO ranged from 25 to 35%, comparable to the values presented in other studies. The temperature outside wall of the gasifier was measured up to $400^{\circ}C$, indicating a great heat loss. When glass wool was cover over the wall, some parts of wire mesh located in the bottom of the reactor were molten down. There were several modifications that should be made in order to improve its efficiency and obtain more stable continuous gasification, including insulation, reduction in pressure loss, durable bottom meshes, the optimum length of reaction part, and safety.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.05a
• /
• pp.63-68
• /
• 2007

An experimental study was carried out to investigate gasification process of wood sawdust in the 1-dimensional downdraft fixed bed gasifier. The preheated air which was used oxidizer and steam were used as a gasifying agent. The downdraft fixed bed gasifier obtains more amount of hydrogen and methane by increasing residence time of supplied air. The operating parameters, the supplied air temperature and steam were used. The oxidizer temperature was varied from 500K to 620K and vapor was added. The gasification process was monitored by measuring temperature at three position near the biomass using R-type thermocouples and the syngas composition was analyzed by gas chromatograph. We get the sample gas at the end of gasifier and it was eonugh time to finishing the chemical reaction. Finally, the amount of hydrogen and methane were increased widely as increasing the oxidizer temperature and adding steam.

• Advances in Energy Research
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.181-194
• /
• 2015

In this work, an experimental study of the gasification on wood was carried out in downdraft type fixed bed Gasifier attached with 10 kW duel fuel diesel engine. The main objective of the study was to use wood as the biomass fuel for downdraft Gasifier and to evaluate the operating parameter of gasifier unit to predict its performance in terms of gas yield and cold gas efficiency. The influence of different biomass on fuel consumption rate, gas yield and cold gas efficiency was studied. Composition of producer gas was also detected for measuring the lower heating value of producer gas to select the feed stock so that optimum performance in the existing gasifier unit can be achieved. Under the experimental conditions, Lower heating value, of producer gas, cold gas efficiency and gas yields, using wood as a feed stock, are $4.85MJ/m^3$, 46.57% and $0.519m^3/kg$.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.53 no.6
• /
• pp.17-22
• /
• 2011

Biomass gasification provides synthesis gas or syngas that can be used for internal combustion engines as fuel or chemical synthesis as feedstock. Among different types of gasifiers, downdraft gasifier can produce relatively clean syngas with lower tar contents. In this study, a downdraft gasifier was fabricated with 150 mm of hearth diameter to gasify woodchip that is commercially available in this country. After drying woodchip to about 20 %, gasification experiments were conducted measuring temperature, pressure, air and gas flow rates. The volumetric concentrations of CO, $H_2$, $CO_2$, $CH_4$ were 10.7~14.5, 16.5~21.4, 12.5~16.6, and 2.3~2.9, respectively. They were overall within the ranges of the results that the previous studies showed. However, CO concentration was relatively lower and H2 was slightly higher than those from other studies. It seemed that water gas shift reaction was occurred due to the moisture in the fuel woodchip. Additional drying process coupled with syngas cooling would be required to improve the overall efficiency and syngas quality.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.662-665
• /
• 2007

Since biomass is given the status of "renewable resource" in contrast to "exhaustible resource" e.q., fossil fuels, it plays a significant role in the sustainable development in future. We installed a downdraft gasifier for power generation from biomass materials. The biomass raw materials were wood chips with a moisture content of 18-23 wt.%, supplied at 40-50kg/h. This paper describes on the optimum gasification air ratio that is defined as the ratio of the oxygen mole supplied into the gasifier to the oxygen mole required for complete combustion for producing syngas supplied into a gas engine. The results showed that, lower heating value of the syngas was 1200 $kcal/m^3$ $_N-dry$ and cold gas efficiency of the gasification system was 72% under optimum operating conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.20 no.11
• /
• pp.80-85
• /
• 2021

The gasification of coffee leaves, which are a type of biomass waste, was conducted on a pilot of a downdraft fixed gasification system to investigate the gasification characteristics. The experiment was performed using a coffee leaf pellet size and a batch-type gasification system consisting of a gasifier, cooling cyclone, scrubber, and bag filter. It was found that the air-to-fuel ratio was 2.32 Nm³/kg·h and the reaction temperature was 700 ℃-900 ℃. However, the air flow rate changed to 0.45 Nm³/min, which was lower than the initial starting value depending on the temperature change during the gasification process. It was concluded that coffee leaves can be converted from biomass waste into useful synthetic gas as an alternative energy source.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.06a
• /
• pp.606-609
• /
• 2007

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the heat value change by various conditions of wood sawdust gasification in the 1-dimensional downdraft flow fixed bed gasifier. The preheated air and steam were used as a gasifying agent. The components of syngas were influenced increasing residence time of supplied agent. The operating parameters, the supplied agent temperature and steam addition were used. The oxidizer temperature was varied from 500K to 620K. The gasification process was monitored by measuring temperature at three points near the biomass using R-type thermocouples and the syngas composition was analyzed by gas chromatograph. We get the sample gas at the end of gasifier. Finally, the amount of hydrogen and methane were increased widely as increasing the oxidizer temperature and adding steam.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.64 no.5
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2022

Hydrogen can be produced by gasification of biomass and other combustible fuels. Depending on oxydant agents, syngas or producer gas compositions become quite different. Since biomass has limited amount of hydrogen including moisture in it, the hydrogen concentration in the syngas is about 15% when air is supplied for oxidant agent. Experiments were conducted to investigate the channges in hydrogen concentrations in syngas with different oxidant agent conditions, fuel conditions, and external heat supply. Allothermal reaction resulted in higher concentrations of hydrogen with the supply of steam over air, reaching over 60%. Hydrogen is produced by water-gas and water-gas shift reactions. These reactions are endothermic and require enough heat. Autothermal reaction occurred in the downdraft gasifier used in the experiment did not provide enough heat in the reactions for hydrogen production. Steam seems a more desirable oxidant agent in producing the syngas with higher concentrations of hydrogen from biomass gasifications since nitrogen is included in syngas when air is used.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
• /
• v.25 no.2_1
• /
• pp.149-159
• /
• 2022

Biomass is material that is comprehensive of carbonaceous materials from plants, crops, animals, and algae. It has been used as one of heating fuel since the beginning the emergence of human beings. Since biomass is regarded as carbon-neutral energy source, it has recently been attracting attention as an energy source that can replace fossil fuels. The most widely applied field is distributed power generation, and a method of generating electric power by driving an internal combustion engine with syngas produced by gasifier is chosen. While the composition of the syngas produced in gasifiers changes depending on the air flowing into the reactor, commercialized gasifiers so far do not control the air flowing into the reactor. When the inner pressure in reactor increases, the air sucked into the reactor is reduced. That change of amount of air makes the composition of syngas varied. Those variations of composition of syngas cause the incomplete combustion hence the power output of engine drops, which is a critical weakness of the gasification technology. In this paper, to produce the uniformly composed syngas, PID control is applied. The result was shown when the amount of air into the reactor is supplied with the constant amount using PID control, the standard deviation of caloric values of syngas is around 2[%] of its average value. Meanwhile the gasifier without PID control has the standard deviation of caloric values is around 7[%]. Therefore, Adopting PID control to supply constant air to the gasifier is highly desirable.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.63-71
• /
• 2006

A downdraft gasifier was made of stainless steel for biomass gasification. Internal reactor had a 300 mm diameter and 8 air intakes. Three thermocouples were installed to measure the temperature inside the reactor. Three different biomass fuels were provided in the experiments to find out the effects of fuel conditions on gasification processes; charcoals, woodchips, and mixture of woodchip and charcoals. Two different experiments were conducted fer charcoal experiments, small and larger sizes of charcoal fuels. It took about 10 minutes after ignition to generate combustible producer gas when charcoal was f9d, but 20 or more minutes for woodchips. When the gasification was stabilized, the highest temperature was observed just below the combustion zone. The air flow rate for woodchip experiment was provided at 25% of a stoichiometric requirement of combustion, which was within the range of typical air flow rate fer woody biomass gasification. Carbon monoxide concentrations were also within the values reported in the previous studies, ranging 20 to 30% depending on fuel types. It could be seen that fuel size and heating value were very important parameters in biomass gasification. These parameters should be taken into account in operating and designing biomass gasifiers.