Experimental analysis of the fixed bed gasification process of the mixtures of the chicken manure with biomass

The increasing worldwide demand for poultry, mainly chickens, has resulted in a growing generation of poultry derived wastes. Among many types of biomass, the animal waste, including poultry manure, can have a significant potential for application in the energy industry. In this work, the proposal of thermal utilization of the chicken manure was given. The laboratory scale research on co-gasification chicken manure with wood pellets has been carried out in a fixed bed gasifier of capacity 5 kg/h. The experiments were done for two types of fuel blends. In the first experiment stage wood pellets were mixed with a raw, pre-dried chicken manure. Another part of test concerned gasification of blends of pelletized chicken manure and wood pellets. The main goal of the experiments was to determine the influence of the addition of dried chicken manure to the wood pellet feedstock on the gasification process as well as on physicochemical properties of generated syngas. The results of the gasification tests confirm that co-gasification of the chicken manure with wood biomass can be a promising proposal for the utilization of a poultry derived wastes. Gasification of a chicken manure provides generation of combustible syngas with the lower heating value LHV equal to 2.0 MJ/m(3) in case of a raw, pre-dried chicken manure and 2.7 MJ/m(3) in case of chicken manure pellets. Increasing share of woody biomass in the feedstock significantly increases the calorific value of the syngas. Different physical properties of the feedstock components (fraction and ash content) require further research to define reactor suitable for co-gasification of analyzed fuel blends. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.