Sugarcane Leaf-Bagasse Gasifier For Industrial Heating

In developing countries like India, use of petrol fuels like furnace oil or light diesel oil to meet the thermal energy demands of industries places a heavy burden on the economy. Use of producer gas from indigenously available agricultural residues is an attractive alternative. This paper reports the commercial scale (1080 MJ h-1) development of a low-density biomass gasification system for thermal applications. The gasifier can handle fuels like sugarcane leaves and bagasse, bajra stalks, sweet sorghum stalks and bagasse etc. The system was tested for more than 700 hours under laboratory conditions at 288-1080 MJ h-1 output levels. The HHV of the gas was 3.56-4.82 MJ Nm-3. The system also produces char, which is about 24 % by weight of the original fuel. It can be briquetted to form an excellent fuel for wood stoves or can be used as a soil conditioner. After successful laboratory testing, the system was also tested in a metallurgical company, where it was retrofitted to a specialty ceramics baking LDO-fired furnace. The furnace was operated exclusively on the gasification system and the product quality was on par with, if not better than, that obtained during LDO-fired operation. The economics of the system is also presented in this paper. Key-words: Biomass; gasification; thermal applications; low density and leafy biomass, bagasse, sugarcane leaves 1