PERFORMANCE INVESTIGATION OF TOP-LIT UPDRAFT GASIFIER STOVE USING DIFFERENT BIOMASS FUELS

The extensive use and dependence on, traditional cooking stoves burning biomass fuels are prime cause of the perilous quality of indoor air. Conventional cooking stoves work at a low efficiency and emit harmful products of incomplete combustion which affect human health, primarily of women and children. Apart from usability, clean combustion of biomass fuel and high thermal efficiency are essential focus areas to be addressed in biomass cooking stove systems. Unfortunately, acceptable solutions are yet to emerge. In search of this goal, three biomass fuels: corn cobs, wood chips and peanut shell pellets were used while investigating the performance of a top-lit updraft (TLUD) gasifier cooking stove with a fuel reactor and a remote burner. The fuel burn rate, the useful energy input and system efficiency while cooking were assessed for each combination of fuel and the appliance. The proximate analysis and energy content of each fuel was assessed. The producer gas analysis results showed that the volumetric fraction of gases from peanut shell pellets were methane (CH4) 3.1 +/- 0.7%, hydrogen (H-2) 15.7 +/- 0.9%, carbon monoxide (CO) 25.2 +/- 1.7%, carbon dioxide (CO2) 11.7 +/- 2.0%, nitrogen (N-2) 42.1 +/- 2.3% and (by subtraction) oxygen (O-2) 2.2 +/- 1.1%. The system efficiency of the stove when fully loaded with peanut shell pellets was higher (31.4 +/- 1.2%) than the performance with corn cobs 27.1 +/- 0.9% or wood chips 23.3 +/- 0.7%. The tar production by products was 10 +/- 2.1 g/kg.