Exploring the synergetic effects of rice husk, cashew shell, and cashew husk biomass blends on fluidized bed gasification for enhanced hydrogen production
J. Manu, T Kailas, Vasudeva Madav
Abstract
The present study, explored the gasification performance of commonly available biomass like rice husk , cashew shell, and cashew husk and their blend for better gasification performance using a 3 kW fluidized bed gasifier in the ER ranging from 0.2 to 0.35 and temperature of 750 °C. The catalytic effect of biomass blends are identified by using FTIR, XRF , proximate and ultimate analysis. The performance of a fluidized bed gasifier is assessed in terms of its producer gas composition, LHV , CCE, CGE and gas yield. The blending of biomass resulted in the enhancement of producer gas quality due to the synergetic effect. At ER of 0.2, maximum hydrogen of 8.1% and LHV of 4.3 MJ/m 3 is obtained, and at ER of 0.35, maximum CGE and CCE of 54.9 and 91% respectively are obtained for RH + CS blend. XRF analysis shows that mineral oxide improves the composition of producer gas, and FTIR analysis indicates a decrease in functional groups in the ash of blended biomass compared to individual biomass.