Schatz Energy Fellow Ranjit Deshmukh fires up the GAS-11 gasifier during a four-day training at Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies in India.
Biomass from agriculture and forestry has tremendous potential for providing renewable energy if it is harvested in an environmentally sustainable manner. Thermal gasification offers a clean, efficient way of producing energy using biomass. The incomplete combustion of biomass in a gasifier results in the production of combustible gases consisting mainly of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. These product gases, after being cleaned and filtered, can be used in a variety of applications ranging from internal combustion based electric generators to combustion for thermal applications. Small-scale gasifiers (devices that convert solid fuels into gaseous fuels) can be transported to farms and forestry operations sites to generate electricity in closed reactors to feed into the grid. Gasifiers could also provide heat and/or electricity to non-electrified communities, schools and other institutions.
SERC was awarded approximately $422,000 for a three-year project to explore the potential to use gasification technology to convert biomass, and especially sugar cane waste, into useful energy products. The effort, which is funded by the Indonesian Sugar Group, is a joint project with the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) of the University of California, Berkeley. HSU graduate students enrolled in the Energy, Environment and Society and Environmental Resources Engineering programs are working on the project.
For gasification project new and updates, view the following issues of SERC Energy News:
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