Short communication

Performance evaluation of producer gas burner for industrial

application
N.L. Panwar a,*, B.L. Salvi b, V. Siva Reddy c
a Department of Renewable Energy Sources, College of Technology and Engineering,
Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and
Technology, Udaipur 313 001, India
b Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Technology and Engineering, M
aharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology,
Udaipur 313 001, India
c Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi 110016, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 27 July 2010
Received in revised form
13 December 2010
Accepted 21 December 2010
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Biomass gasifier
Combustion
Industrial burner
Pyrolysis
Thermal application
Emission
a b s t r a c t
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of premixed type indust
rial
burner with producer gas, in terms of emission, axial and radial flame temperatu
re. The
developed burner was a concentric tube type where the air supplied through a cen
tral tube,
which is surrounded by another one. It having 150 kWth capacity and tested on op
en core
downdraft type gasifier. The burner consists of swirl vane for mixing the air an
d producer
gas, mixing tube and bluff body for flame stabilization. Swirl angle and bluff b
ody diameter
was kept constant throughout the study. Burner was evaluated with open core down
draft
type gasifier. In order to understand the qualitative differences in the tempera
ture profile
and emissions during combustion of producer gas, an experiment was conducted on
threeflow
rate and air-fuel ratio. Study shows low NOx and CO emission at 125 Nm3 h1 as
compared to that of 75 and 100 Nm3 h1. Maximum flame temperature (753 C) was
recorded at of 10 cm axial and 10 mm radial distance.
ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Biomass energy is attracting more and more attention worldwide
because it is a potentially CO2 neutral and renewable
energy source [1]. It derived from the reaction between CO2 in
the air, water and the sunlight, via photosynthesis, to produce
carbohydrates, which form the building blocks of biomass.
Typically photosynthesis converts less than 1% of the available
sunlight to stored, chemical energy. The solar energy is
stored in the chemical bonds of the structural components of
biomass by photosynthesis. When biomass is processed efficiently,
either chemically or biologically, the energy stored in
the chemical bonds is released along with CO2 and water. The
process is cyclical, as the CO2 is then available to produce new
biomass [2,3]. Combustion of biomass produces hot gases at
temperatures around 800e1000 C [4e6]. The heat generated
by burning of biomass in air (i.e. combustion) may be used to
develop mechanical power or electricity using various items of
process equipment, e.g. stoves, furnaces, boilers, steam
turbines, turbo-generators, etc.
Heating systems based on wood, fuel oil, electricity and
coal/lignite are common in small industries. Environmental
pollution, poor process control and high cost are some of the
limitations of these systems. On the other hand, biomass
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 294 247 1068 (work); fax: þ91 294 247 1056.
E-mail address: nlpanwar@rediffmail.com (N.L. Panwar).
Available at www.sciencedirect.com
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe
b i oma s s and b i o e n e rgy xxx ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1e5
Please cite this article in press as: Panwar NL, et al., Performance evaluation
of producer gas burner for industrial application,
Biomass and Bioenergy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.12.046
0961-9534/$ e see front matter ª 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2010.12.046