Experimental Studies of Bamboo-based Biomass Gasification Process in a Double Tapered Bubbling Fluidized Bed Reactor

This paper presents the gasification process of bamboo-based biomass in a tapered fluidized bed reactor to produce syngas for energy generation. For this purpose, a double tapered bubbling fluidized bed reactor was fabricated with a taper angle of 5°. The bubbling fluidized bed reactor operates at a lower fluid velocity (0–2 m/s). The compositions of the syngas constituents were monitored, and their variation with specific experimental parameter was studied. Variation of parameters that influence the fluidization and gasification behaviour like Suspension density, moisture content, temperature, heat transfer from the bed to the wall with varied particle size, and effect of particle size on the dry gas yield, carbon conversion efficiency were investigated. The results showed better prospects for Bambusa vulgaris Wamin as compared to other selected biomasses at 800°C. It was concluded from the experiment that the smaller particle size (≤1.18 mm) and optimum biomass feed rate favoured enhanced syngas yield and solid-gas conversion. The moisture content present in the biomass between (10-15%) and moderate gasification temperature (800°C) enhanced the production of methane and hydrogen. The dry gas yield (>80%) and carbon conversion efficiency (63.1 %) was found to be better for the bigger particle size of 1.18 mm between the feed rate 0.01-0.02 kg.