Experimental study of combustion of low-calorific producer gas from small scale biomass gasification within porous burner

The aim of this experimental study is to investigate the combustion low-calorific producer gas within porous burner. The small scale downdraft biomass gasification for rural area was performed to produce gaseous fuel. Three types of wood in Thailand were used as raw materials to produce producer gas, i.e. Acacia-mangium, White popinac and Eucalyptus. The low heating values of producer gas were in the range of 3800-4232 kJ.kg(-1) that are difficult to burn in conventional burner. Tapered and bilayer porous burners were used to overcome this limitation. The effects of air preheating modes, equivalence ratio and firing rate on thermal structure and pollutant emission were revealed. The results showed that the complete combustion with low emission of low-calorific producer gas was accomplished with low firing rate in the range of 2.8 - 3 kW. Both CO and NOx emission were less than 160 ppm for all of tests. The combustion within tapered porous burner emitted small CO emission nearly zero for all of equivalence ratios. The tar reduction was 99.5% by combustion within porous burner.