A comparative study on gaseous fuel generation capability of biomass materials by thermo-chemical gasification using stoichiometric quasi-steady-state model

The present work investigates the potential of different biomasses for air-steam gasification using thermodynamic equilibrium model. A stoichiometric thermodynamic equilibrium model considering char conversion and tar formation is developed using MATLAB software to compare the gasification performance of different biomasses in terms of product gas yield, heating value and energy efficiency. Regression analysis is performed and correlations for the yield of different syngas constituents are developed in terms of temperature, steam to biomass ratio and equivalence ratio for all the biomasses. For a temperature of 1000 K, steam to biomass ratio of unity and equivalence ratio of 0.25, maximum mole fraction of hydrogen (14.89 %) was obtained from rubber seed shell with a lower heating value and gas yield of 4.71 MJ/Nm(3) and 1.18 Nm(3)/h, respectively.