Properties Evaluation and Computational Analysis of Gasifier Chamber Unit Using Agricultural Waste
Keywords:
Biomass, gasifier unit, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), flow characteristicsAbstract
Malaysia is projected to produce 16.8 billion tonnes of biomass annually, thereby leading to the accumulation of agricultural waste in great abundance Thus, the country is indeed facing a big challenge related to handling and disposing of these wastes. As the world is moving towards a greener earth, the act of dumping the waste in landfills or resorting it to open burning seems irresponsible and looks as if the nation is left with no sustainable choice or option to overcome the problem. Nevertheless, the nation must be proactive and need to respond positively to avoid or minimize the predicament. The process of gasification could help to address the matter, for instance, taking the palm kernel shell as feedstock, turning it into synthesis gas (syngas). This is one of the alternative solutions that could be used as an alternative fuel that will benefit the nation. The objective of this study is to establish the fuel properties of the syngas database using a proximate analysis method and also to determine the fluid flow in a gasifier chamber unit of the gasification system via a computational approach (numerical simulation). Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation was carried out using the ANSYS Fluent software, taking into account different swirler angles (30º, 40º and 50º) to observe the effect of using the swirler in the chamber unit. Five agricultural wastes were utilized as samples, namely, the palm kernel shell (PKS), ground coconut shell (GCS), torrefied rubber seed (TRS), empty fruit bunch (EFB) and wood chips (WC), each of which obtained a specific high heating value (HHV) as a fuel property of 18.53, 18.00, 17.94, 18.37 and 17.39 MJ/kg, respectively. From the computational analysis, the CFD simulation is capable to determine the flow characteristics in the gasifier chamber unit. A swirler angle of 40° appeared as ideal to be implemented in the gasifier chamber unit since it produced better results in terms of the gasification residuals and static temperature distribution.
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