Modeling and Simulation of Rice Husk Gasification using Equilibrium Approach

Gasification is a technique of changing solids into gases. So far, gasification has been widely used by utilizing coal, which contains many impurities like sulfur. Because of that, a gasification technology that utilizes biomass was developed. One of the biomass that is often found in Indonesia is rice husk. This research will use an equilibrium approach to study rice husk gasification modeling and simulation using the Aspen Plus v8.8 simulator. In addition, the influence of the number of gasification agents, such as steam and air, and gasification temperature was also studied in this research. The amount of steam used is expressed in the steam-to-biomass ratio (SBR), while the amount of air used is expressed in the equivalence ratio (ER). This study uses SBR 0.4 and 0.6, ER 0.4 and 0.6, and gasification temperatures of 750oC and 850oC. From this study, if the SBR is increased, the amount of H2 will also be greater. Meanwhile, the increase in ER will reduce the amount of H2 and CO in synthetic gas. The higher gasification temperature will increase the CO composition but decrease the H2 gas content.