?Investigation on Gasification of Oil Palm Fronds, Challenges and Remedies

Abstract

The basic characteristics of different feedstock materials to be used as fuel in a gasification process vary with the chemical and physical properties, bulk density, amount of fiber, moisture content etc. Hence the gasification potential of different biomass fuels needs to be investigated in terms of their suitability, performance and required preparation before gasification. This paper presents results of a preliminary study on the gasification behavior, potential, operational challenges (in terms of stability of operation, bridging, steam accumulation, and clinker formation) and their remedies for gasification of Oil Palm Fronds (OPF) feedstock. A simpler method of determining moisture content of OPF with a direct measurement of the density of a sample of the feedstock was developed. In addition, the equilibrium moisture content of OPF biomass was also determined. The axial temperature profile of the downdraft gasifier run on OPF feedstock was found to be in good agreement with literature values and investigation of stability of operation in terms of the dynamic temperature profile of the gasifier with operating time was found to be in the range of ±60 oC/min which was found to be satisfactory compared to literature. The study of variation of syngas heating value with operation time showed that the lower heating value (LHV) of syngas was found to be above 4 MJ/Nm3 (4.7 to 5.26 MJ/Nm3) throughout the stable operation time, which indicates satisfactory output comparable with that of woody biomass.