MODELING AND TESTING A COGENARATION PLANT BASED ON WOOD GASIFICATION

This paper presents a study aimed at developing a biomass gasifier and a small cogeneration system. The target flow rate of the producer gas is determined by the electric power generation of 20-40 kW. The wood gasifier is integrated with a steam generator and a power reciprocating steam engine and can produce charcoal and electric energy. The maintenance costs of steam engines can be cheaper than those of internal combustion engines or gas turbines. The aim was to build a wood chip atmospheric fixed bed gasifier. The rest of the cogeneration plant can be constructed by using available technology: - a steam generator with a low content of water to produce superheated steam at 20 bar and 400 °C, and reheated steam at 3 bar and 400 °C; - one radial 5 cylinder reciprocating steam engine; The expected ideal efficiency of energy conversion is about 20 % (measured on the LHV of gas). A computer program simulates gasification operation by solving a set of partial differential equa-tions representing the chemical transformations of wood into producer gas. Applied to a down-draft gasifier, the results of the numerical gasification model are realistic and indicate a producer gas having a molar H2 concentration of about 19%, CO of 14%, and a lower thermal value of about 5.4 kJ/Nm3