There are three types of gasifiers Downdraft Updraft Crossdraft.

t. And as the classification implies updraft gasifier has air passing through the biomass from bottom 3

and the combustible gases come out from the top of the gasifier. Similarly in the downdraft gasifier the air is passed from the tuyers in the downdraft direction. The choice of one type of gasifier over other is dictated by the fuel, its final available form, its size, moisture content and ash content. Sr. No. 1. Gasifier Type Updraft Advantage Disadvantages

2.

3.

- Small pressure drop - -Great sensitivity to tar and moisture - good thermal efficiency and moisture content of fuel - little tendency towards slag- - relatively long time required for formation start up of IC engine - -poor reaction capability with heavy gas load Downdraft - - Flexible adaptation of gas - Design tends to be tall production to load - not feasible for very small particle - -low sensitivity to charcoal size of fuel dust and tar content of fuel Crossdraft - Short design height - Very high sensitivity to slag - very fast response time to formation load - high pressure drop - flexible gas production

Four distinct processes take place in a gasifier as the fuel makes its way to gasification. They are :

Drying of fuel Pyrolysis a process in which tar and other volatiles are driven off Combustion
Reduction

Application of Producer Gas in IC Engines

The biggest application of producer gas has been in driving IC engines. Both spark ignition and compression ignition engines have been driven by it. In principle any IC engine can be converted to run partly or completely on gas. 1. Spark Ignition Engine When a spark ignition engine is converted to operation on producer gas it is derated to about 40-50% . The deration is primarily because of low energy density of producer gas. This accounts for about 30% loss of power. The rest is accounted for by the pressure drop in the intake valves and piping. A spark ignition engine on the whole requires very little modification to run on producer gas. Generally depending upon the make of engine (compression ratio and rpm), the ignition timing has to be advanced by about 30-40 degrees. This is done because of low flame speed of producer gas as compared to gasoline. It should be noted that in general the overall efficiency of the IC engine itself does not change though the power derating takes place. However, detailed comparison of the engine efficiencies with and without producer gas has not been done because of insufficient data and large variations in producer gas composition. Thus a conservative figure of 15-20% can be used as efficiency of spark ignition engines. With the above efficiencies it is easy to calculate the mechanical energy available per kg of biomass gasified. With gasifier efficiency of 68% the total system efficiency (gasification and engine) is 10-13%. Thus on an average one can get 0.55-0.75 kWh of mechanical energy per kilogram of biomass gasified (calorific value of biomass is taken to be 19.6 MJ/kg ). 2. Compression Ignition Engine: A compression ignition or diesel engine cannot be operated on producer gas completely without injection of small amount of diesel. This is because the producer gas cannot ignite by itself under prevailing pressure. Thus for compression ignition engines to run on producer gas they have to be either.

a) a dual fuel engine or, b) converted into spark ignition engines. Since diesel engines have compression ratio between 16-20 and are run at lower rpm than gasoline engines they are ideally suited to run on producer gases with spark ignition. However, conversion of the engine to spark ignition is costly and elaborate affair and the advantages are nullified by the cost. Thus most of the diesel engines running on producer gas have been dual fuel type. Especially in developing countries, where the proliferation of diesel engines has been because of dual pricing structure (diesel is subsidized). Because of high compression ratio and low speeds, the derating derating. Even if gasoline engines are used in dual fuel mode their derating is still between 40-50%30 . On an average the diesel of diesel engines running on producer gas is between 15-30%. This is far superior to the gasoline engines engine can run on 15-20% (of the original consumption) diesel and rest on producer gas. Generally the engine is started on diesel and as the gas generation builds up the diesel consumption is then kept at the idling level. The engine efficiency in this case is 25%. Thus as a thumb rule the dual fuel engine producing 1kWh requires 1 kg of biomass and consumes 0.07 liters of diesel .

AIM:Evaluation of performance characteristics of a diesel engine on biodiesel-blend and compare the results with baseline data of diesel APPARATUS :Diesel,ethanol,biodiesel,4 stroke 4cylinder diesel engine,RME,flue gas analyser THEORY: The biggest problem of the 21st century is linked with increasing prices of mineral fuels, eventual depletion of fossil reserves and growing society concern about global warming. In spite of high prices of the diesel fuel its demand for transportation and agricultural purposes increases year by year and overcomes production possibilities. Increased fuel consumption leads to climate changes because of air pollution by harmful NO, NOx, CO, CO2 and HC emissions that all together lead to frequent hurricanes, heavy rains and deadly floods. In order to reduce the demand of fossil fuels and alleviate emerging environmental problems.On aside lands grown bioethanol is indigenous and locally available, environment friendly and renewable, sustainable and reliable, safe to store and easy to handle, non-polluting and sulphur-free material, and is one of the cleaner-burning alternatives to mineral fuels. Several methods can be used to employ a certain amount of ethanol for diesel engine fuelling, which are known as alcohol fumigation , application of dual injection systems , using of the alcohol-diesel fuel micro-emulsions and preparation of the alcohol-diesel fuel blends. The addition of 15 vol % of ethanol and 5 vol % of RME (rapeseed methyl ester)into diesel fuel does not change greatlythe density of biofuel blend B5E15 and its kinematic viscosity relative to the corresponding values of a neat diesel fuel because the lower density(790.0kgm-3) and viscosity (1.40 mm2s-1) of ethanol is compensated by 1.12 times higher density(884.7kgm-3) at temperature of 20 C and by 3.42 times higher viscosity(4.79mm2s-1) at temperature of 40 C of RME portion premixed. BRAKE SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION The bigger biofuel mass content consumed for the same amount of energy produced by the engine can be attributed primarily to lower, on average by 6.18 %, net heating value (39.52MJkg-1) of blend B5E15 comparing with that of the diesel fuel (42.55 MJkg-1). However, the difference in the heating values of the tested fuels is probably not the main reason that leads to higher ethanol-diesel-biodiesel blend consumption in grams per unit energy developed. To compensate both lower net heating valueof ethanol-diesel-biodiesel blend and its a little bit worse energy conversion efficiency and restore the effective power of the engine bigger fuel delivery per plunger active stroke must be adjusted. In the case of substitution diesel fuel with blendB5E15 the brake thermal efficiency is lower by 5.56 %, 2.86 % and 2.86 % relative to its values given from the diesel fuel at respective speeds. The lower thermal efficiency can be attributed to the changes occurring in the combustion process . The extremely low cetane number of ethanol, its low calorific value (26.82 MJkg-1) and significant cooling effect of the fuel sprays caused by high latent

heat for evaporation (910 kJkg-1) may lead to retarded start of combustion, relocate maximum cylinder gas pressure and temperature points towards the expansion stroke and increase incomplete diffusion burning of fuel reach portions . Twice as much higher autoignition temperature (420 C) of ethanol relative to that of diesel fuel (230 C) aggravates autoignition and provokes misfiring cycles at easy loads and sharp knocking under heavy loads for bigger than 15 vol % ethanol additions , the biodiesel operates on oxygenated (6.1 % oxygen) and less (by 6.18 %) calorific blend B5E15 under air-to-fuel equivalence ratios lower, on average, by 2.07 %, 3.52 % and 1.34 % at 1400, 1800 and 2200 min-1 speeds. This may be the main reason as to why the brake thermal efficiency is relatively lower for biodiesel than that of a normal diesel and the brake specific fuel consumption is considerably higher in the case of operating on blend B5E15. Worsening in the performance efficiency of biodiesel is evidently demonstrated by corresponding NOx, CO and HC emissions behaviour under the considered loading conditions. The amounts of NO and NOx emissions depend on the performance conditions of the engine, the feedstock oil used for engine fuelling and iodine number, the composition and chemical structure of the fatty acids as well as on variations in actual fuel injection timing advance and autoignition delay caused by changes in physical properties, such as the effect of bulk modulus, viscosity and density of the biofuel. The experiments in a steel combustion chamber with 5 vol %, 10 vol % and 20 vol % ethanoldiesel blends showed that blending diesel fuel with additives having considerably higher H/C ratios improves the combustion process, reducing pollutants and soot mass concentration in the exhausts . In the case of running a fully loaded engine on ethanol-diesel-biodiesel blend B5E15 the smoke opacity of the exhausts is reduced by 13.2 %, 1.5 % and 2.7 % at speeds of 1400, 1800 and 2200 min-1comparing with its baseline 61.3 %, 66.0 % and 69.6 % values measured from neat diesel fuel . Having in mind that comparison of all emissions generated from blend B5E15 is performed under diminished air-to-fuel equivalence ratios , such result is acceptable and matches well with lower NOx amounts and bigger both HC and CO emissions at higherspeeds