Pratik N. Sheth

Experimental studies on producer gas generation from wood waste in a downdraft biomass gasifier.

A process of conversion of solid carbonaceous fuel into combustible gas by partial combustion is known as gasification. The resulting gas, known as producer gas, is more versatile in its use than the original solid biomass. In the present study, a downdraft biomass gasifier is used to carry out the gasification experiments with the waste generated while making furniture in the carpentry section of the institutes workshop. Dalbergia sisoo, generally known as sesame wood or rose wood is mainly used in the furniture and wastage of the same is used as a biomass material in the present gasification studies. The effects of air flow rate and moisture content on biomass consumption rate and quality of the producer gas generated are studied by performing experiments. The performance of the biomass gasifier system is evaluated in terms of equivalence ratio, producer gas composition, calorific value of the producer gas, gas production rate, zone temperatures and cold gas efficiency. Material balance is carried out to examine the reliability of the results generated. The experimental results are compared with those reported in the literature.

Differential Evolution Approach for Obtaining Kinetic Parameters in Nonisothermal Pyrolysis of Biomass

Pyrolysis, a first step in the biomass gasification, is the thermal decomposition of organic matter under inert atmospheric conditions, leading to the release of volatiles and formation of char. As pyrolysis is a kinetically controlled reaction, kinetic parameter estimation is very important in the design of pyrolysis reactors. In the proposed kinetic model of this study, the kinetic scheme of biomass decomposition by two competing reactions giving gaseous volatiles and solid charcoal is used. Four different models are proposed based on different possible relation of activity of biomass with normalized conversion. The corresponding kinetic parameters of the above models are estimated by minimizing the square of the error between the reported nonisothermal experimental data of thermogravimetry of hazelnut shell and simulated model predicted values of residual weight fraction using differential evolution (DE), a population-based search algorithm. Among the four different models proposed in this study, the model in which rate of change of activity of biomass with normalized conversion proposed as a function of activity itself gave the best agreement with the experimental data.

Techno-economic Assessment of Thermochemical Biomass Conversion Technologies

This book chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the techno-economic analysis of various thermochemical biomass conversion technologies for the production of fuels, chemicals and electricity. In the first part of the chapter, a brief introduction on the importance of alternative energy sources and the need for the techno-economic analysis for thermochemical conversion processes are discussed. In the next part, various thermochemical routes for biomass conversion processes are described. The reactor configurations, operating parameters and product composition for each of these processes are also discussed. The third section of the chapter focuses on the techno-economic analysis methodology and different steps involved in carrying out the feasibility of biomass conversion processes. Different process modelling tools and cost estimation methods are also discussed in this section. While in the fourth section, different techno-economic studies carried out by various researchers for the production of fuels, chemicals and electricity through thermochemical conversion routes are discussed in terms of process description, and the results are reported. In the final section, two case studies are discussed in details for techno-economic analysis. One case study is of fast pyrolysis for transportation fuel production, and the second one is for dimethyl ether (DME) production through gasification of biomass. This chapter will be helpful for understanding different techno-economic studies available and comparison of different thermochemical conversion routes to get the desired end product at the minimum cost.