Effects of Heating Temperature and Moisture on Indirect Gasification of Rubber Wood in Closed Gasifier Chamber

Abstract

Rural area in Indonesia of which electrification ratio is still low has a strong demand for off-grid electric power supply. On the other hand, Indonesia is a leading natural rubber production country and these rubber wood trees are cultivated in vast plantation farms. A rubber wood tree is woody biomass resource which can be stably supplied because a lot of trees aged more than 25 years are logged and nursery trees are planted constantly. Woody biomass is burned directly as solid fuel and the generated thermal energy can be applied only for room heating or cooking. Otherwise, direct conversion of biomass to electric energy requires a large scale equipment such as a boiler and a steam turbine, whereas gasified woody biomass can be easily handled and can have wide application. A closed gasifier chamber which was kept vacuum and fulfilled with gas yield during gasification was recently developed by the authors for indirect gasification. It was confirmed that generated gas by the gasifier is clean and can be directly used to drive an engine generator to supply electricity. In this study, planer dust of rubber wood is used as gasification feedstock for indirect gasifying in the closed gasifier chamber, and effects of heating temperature and moisture content on gasification performance are discussed to examine characteristics of the closed gasifier chamber in details.