Characteristics of Air-blown Gasification for Woods in a Fixed-bed Downdraft Gasifier 163

Characteristics of Air-blown Gasification for Woods

in a Fixed-bed Downdraft Gasifier
Chih-Lun Hsi, Tzong-Yuan Wang, Chiu-Hao Liu, and Jing-T Kuo*
* Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan 10617
(E-mail: jtkme@ntu.edu.tw)

Abstract: An experimental investigation of a fixed-bed, downdraft air-blown gasifier has been carried out using wooden cubes 15
mm3 made of Lauan wood. The reactor is a cylinder with an internal diameter of 200 mm and a height of 1000 mm. The effect of
airflow rate, air preheating temperature, and moisture content of wood cubes on producer gas composition and heating value were
presented. The conversion rate of wooden cubes increases linearly with the cold airflow rate within the range from 6 to 18 Nm3g h-1.
The producer gas heating value and efficiency of gasifier increase with increasing rate of cold air up to 15 Nm3 gh-1 then drop down
due to the dilution effect of cold air. Preheated air temperature up to 573 K was found to have marginal effect on producer gas
heating value. Moisture content of wood can significantly lower the wood cubes conversion rate and producer gas heating value. The
optimum mean higher heating value of producer gas obtained in this work, using woods with 18% of moisture content and cold air, is
~ 5.2 MJgNm-3. A one-dimensional steady model was developed for biomass gasification to predict the axial profiles of temperature
and gas composition in a downdraft reactor. Agreement between experimental and predicted producer gas heating value is acceptable.

Keywords: Gasifier, Gasification, Producer gas

1 INTRODUCTION
Biomass has been widely recognized to be a major source
of renewable energy. Gasification is a process for converting
biomass to combustible gas composed of H2, CO, and CH4.
There are some excellent reviews of biomass gasification
technologies [1, 2]. The producer gas composition is
influenced by factors such as properties of feedstock,
manipulation of the air, reaction temperature, etc. Downdraft
gasification is a simple and reliable technology that can
generate a producer gas with very low tar content. Therefore,
the downdraft gasifier is generally favored for coupling to a
small-scale electricity generation with a heat engine [2].
The characteristics of fixed-bed downdraft biomass
gasifiers have been investigated theoretically [3-6] and
experimentally [7-10]. Walawender et al. [7] carried out
experiments using a commercialized downdraft gasifier, which
has a diameter of 0.6 m and is completely open at the top. The
gasifier was operated by feeding mixed hardwood chips of 14
mm with 6 to 17% moisture content and 43.1-202.1 kggh-1 of
dry air. The chip feed rate ranging from 27-126 kggh-1 with a
reported producer gas mean heating value of 5.51 MJgm-3. A
small-scale stratified downdraft gasifier (100 mm i.d. and 500
mm height) was operated under steady conditions by Barrio et
al. [8]. Wood pellets (6 mm diameter and 6-15 mm of length)
with 7.5% moisture content were used to produce the gas with
a LHV of 5.3~5.7 MJgNm-3. An experimental study of a
downdraft gasifier was carried out by Zainal et al. [9] to
investigate the effect of equivalence ratio on the gas
composition calorific value and the gas production rate. It was
found that the percentage of H2 increases linearly with the
equivalence ratio. The percentages of CO and CH4, as well as
the calorific value of the producer gas were observed to
increase with the increasing equivalence ratio up to some peak
value and then start decreasing. Dogru et al. [10] carried out
gasification of hazelnut shells in a 5 kWe downdraft gasifier
ranging from 1.7 to 5.5 kggh-1. Optimum operation was
achieved between 1.44-1.47 Nm3gkg-1 of air/fuel ratio and
produced gas with a calorimetric value of ~5 MJgm-3.
In this work, experimental investigation of a
laboratory-scale air-blown downdraft wood gasifier has been
performed to study the effects of air manipulation such as the
flow rate and the preheating temperature of the air streams, as
well as the moisture content of fuels, on performance of the
wood gasifier. A one-dimensional steady model was developed
for biomass gasification to predict the axial profiles of
temperature and gas composition in a downdraft reactor.
2 EXPERIMENTAL
The wood gasification system is represented as Fig.1 and
Fig.2. It mainly consists of a reactor, a fuel feeding system, an
air blower connected with an electric heater, an igniter, a
producer-gas-cooling heat exchanger, a condensate water
collector, and an ash collector. The reactor is a cylinder with
an internal diameter of 200 mm and a height of 1000 mm. The
thickness of the wall is 140 mm consisting of refractory
cement (50 mm), steel cylinder (10 mm), rock wool (30 mm),
steel cylinder (10 mm), and blanketed on the outside with
fabric of fiberglass (40 mm). A total of ten K-type
thermocouple temperatures sensors were installed at various
locations above the grate. Thermocouple CH01 is located at
the height of 930 mm above the grate. The other nine
thermocouples are spaced 100 mm apart and the lowest one
(CH10) is located at a distance of 30 mm above the grate.
164 International Conference on Power Engineering-2007, October 23-27, 2007, Hangzhou, China
Fig.1 Gasification system: (1) silo; (2) screw feeder; (3) safety
valve; (4) reactor; (5) air distributor; (6) air blower; (7)
igniter; (8) heat exchanger; (9) condensate water
collector; (10) ash collector
Fig.2 Photograph of downdraft gasifier
Wooden cubes made of Lauan of 15mm×15mm×15mm
were used as fuel of the air-blown gasifier in the present work.
The ultimate analysis on a dry basis is: C, 45.85%; H, 5.98%;
O, 48.05; and N, 0.12%. The average of wood density with
18% moisture content (wet basis) is 790 kg g m-3. Test
conditions and some characteristics of the gasifier
performance are listed in Table 1.
Table 1 Test conditions and characteristics of the gasifier
Nine runs of gasification tests have been performed in this
work. Experiments no. 1 to no. 5 were executed with the same
moisture content of 18% of wood cubes under the same
temperature of the air streams. Experiments no. 6 and 7 were
carried out with the air preheated to 473 and 573K,
respectively. The fuels used in No. 8 were oven dried at 378K
for 96 hours. Those used in No. 9 were oven dried in the same
procedure as No. 8 at first, bathed in water for seven days and
then dried by natural convection to the moisture content of ~
33% (wet basis). Before tests, woods were preserved in plastic
bags to control the moisture content.
Wooden cubes were fed into the reactor by a screw feeder
from the top of the gasifier. Air was separated to six streams
and introduced to the reactor at the height of 530 mm above
the grate. The wood bed was ignited by an igniter located at a
distance of 130 mm above the grate. The bed level was
controlled above the height of the air inlet and kept constant
by a photoelectric sensor. Gas samples were taken at the
positions at the same heights but different meridian angles to
those of the thermocouples, as well as at the exit of the reactor.
Gas was sampled by using sampling bottles and suction pump,
tar content and the particulates were filtered by glass wool.
Gas composition on a dry basis was analyzed by gas
chromatography.
3 MODELING
3.1 Chemical reactions and the kinetics
The reactions involving in a downdraft gasifier include
drying, pyrolysis, flaming combustion of volatile material,
heterogeneous char combustion and char gasification. Since
the feeding air is under the stoichiometric air demand, oxygen
is consumed rapidly in the flaming pyrolysis region and
reduced to ~ 1%. Glowing combustion may occur if there was
unburned oxygen penetrates to the char surface. Based on the
consideration that the burning rate of solid fuel bed is related
to the consumption rate of oxygen as the air is flowing through
the fuel bed, Kuo [11] developed a model to estimate the
burning rate of refuse bed in a combustion furnace. The gross
reaction of solid fuel in the pyrolysis and flaming combustion
region can be described as:
CaHbOcgf(H2O)+ r̂ ofO2 o
(1)
a (1  rCO )CO 2  arCO CO  ( f  b / 2)H 2 O
where r̂of is the oxygen-to-fuel mole ratio, rco is fraction of
carbon converted to carbon monoxide.
Oxygen distribution in the fuel bed can be represented as:
dX O2
 KX on2 (1  ar X O2 ) (2)
dy
where K ( Rd / ar ) ln(1  ar X O2 ) ; Rd is the coefficient of reaction,
which is likely to be on the order of 10; n is the order of
reaction, and ar is the ratio of change in gaseous moles to the
 Characteristics of Air-blown Gasification for Woods in a Fixed-bed Downdraft Gasifier 165

change in oxygen moles. The corresponding fuel combustion

rate is: 3.2 Conservation equations
In this study, conservation of mass and energy for solid and
1 dX Mˆ (3)
rFP  U g u g O2 R gas phases based on a macro-scale, described in one
rˆof dy Mˆ a dimensional form and along the axial direction of the reactor,
was used for modeling the steady state processes of the
The flaming pyrolysis region is followed by a gasification
downdraft gasifier.
region, in which the char is converted to the producer gas
Continuity equations of solid phase, gas phase, and the
mainly by the following endothermic reactions [12]:
gaseous species are given as:
C  CO 2 o 2CO 'hG ,CO2 14372kJ/kg (4)
d( U s us ) (14)
(rFP  rG ,CO2  rG ,H2O  rG ,H2 )
dy
C  H 2 O o CO  H 2 'hG ,H2O 14609kJ / kg (5)
d( U g u g ) (15)
rFP  rG ,CO2  rG ,H 2O  rG ,H2
Reaction rates of Eqs. (4) and (5) are taken from ref. [12]: dy
rG ,CO 2 = UCO2 a p ( Mˆ C / Mˆ CO ) hD kG ,CO /( hD  kG ,CO ) d( U g ,i u g ,iYg ,i ) (16)
¦b
2 2 2
r
i, j j
(6) dy j

rG ,H2O U H O a p ( Mˆ C / Mˆ H
2 2O
) hD kG ,H
2O
/( hD  kG ,H
2O
) where Y is the mass fraction of gas species i; bi,j is the yield of
species i from reaction j; i = CO, CO2, CH4, H2O, O2.
(7)
Energy balances of solid and gas phases within the fuel bed
where a 6(1  H ) / d is the fuel bed solid surface area per unit are formulated as:
p p

volume, the parameter H is the void fraction of fuel bed; d( U s u s hs ) (17)

dy
¦ r 'h j j  hsg a p (Ts  Tg )  4 hws (Ts  Tw ) / D
hD 0.8Dg (2.0  1.1Re Sc ) / d p is the mass transfer coefficient;
0.6 1/ 3 j

M̂ is molecular weight; the reaction rate constant of Eqs. (6) d( U g u g hg ) (18)

and (7) described in Arrhenius form is dy
¦ r 'h j
j j  hsg a p (Ts  Tg )  4hwg (Tg  Tw ) / D

kG ,CO 3.42TS exp(1.56 u104 / TS ) and kG ,H2O 1.67kG ,CO2 , where hsg
2
2.06(1/ H )C pg U g u g Re 0.575 Sc 2 / 3 is the heat transfer
respectively. coefficient between solid and gas phases [14] ; the wall heat
An exothermic reaction of char with hydrogen producing transfer coefficients hws and hwg are also taken from ref. [14].
methane is considered in this model,

C  2H 2 o CH 4 'hG ,H2 74.93kJ / mol (8) 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The reaction rate of Eq. (8) is
4.1 General characteristics of the fuel bed gasification
rG ,H 2 a p CH 2 hD kG ,H2 /(hD  kG ,H2 ) (9) Nine runs experiments have been carried out in this work,
the operational parameters and the corresponding characteristics
where CH is the hydrogen molar concentration; hD is the mass of the gasifier are listed in Table 1. Fig.3 shows the
2
temperature record of the exp. No. 3. Fuel bed was ignited by
transfer coefficient, hD 2.06(1/ H )ug Re0.575 Sc 2/ 3 ;
an igniter located at a distance of 130 mm above the grate (CH
and kG ,H 104 exp(26095 / TS ) [13]. 09), thus the temperature at CH10 rose to the peak values after
2

The water gas shift reaction is included in this work and ~ 20 minutes. It is evident that the flame front propagated
was considered to be reversible as [13]: upwards from the bottom of the fuel bed (CH10) to the
location of the air inlet (CH 06). Fig.3 also indicates that it
CO  H2O U CO2  H2 'hWGS 41.2kJ / mol (10) took~120 minutes for the whole packed fuel bed to achieve
the steady condition.
The kinetic rate of water gas shift reaction rWGS is taken
from [13]: 4.2 Effect of airflow rate
Table 1 indicates that fuel conversion rate increases with
rWGS H kWGS (CCOCH O  CCO CH / K E ) (11)
2 2 2 increasing rate of airflow. Fig.4 confirms the proportionality
between the fuel conversion rate and airflow rate. However,
kWGS 2.78exp(1513 / Tg ) (12) the heating value of producer gas and the cold gas efficiency
increase with the increasing rate of cold air up to 15 Nm3 gh-1
KE 0.0265 exp(3966 / Tg ) (13) then drop down, as shown in Table 1. The axial temperature
profiles of exp. no.1 to No. 5 are demonstrated in Fig. 5. Fig.5
166 International Conference on Power Engineering-2007, October 23-27, 2007, Hangzhou, China
shows that temperature of the gasification zone of exp. No.5 is
lower that those of No. 2 to No. 4, owing to the dilution effect
resulting from the larger amount of cold air. As a result, the
rates of gasification reactions were decelerated. Flame
spreading speed increased with the airflow rate up to 15
Nm3 g h-1 then decreased dramatically. This finding is
consistent with the result of Saastamoinen et al. [15].
Fig.3 Temperature histories at various locations inside
the fuel bed of exp. No. 3
Fig.4 Fuel conversion rate as a function of airflow rate
Fig.5 Temperature profiles of fuel bed of exp. No. 1 to 5
4.3 Effect of air preheating temperature
In order to investigate the effect of air preheating
temperature on the performance of wood gasifier, exp. No. 6
and No. 7 were conducted with preheated air of 473 and 573K,
respectively. Table 1 reveals the fact that, as compared with
the result of exp. No. 3, preheating the air to 473 and 573 K
can accelerate the flame spreading velocity significantly.
Experimental observations showed that the time to reach the
steady condition of a gasifier operated with preheating air at
473 and 573 K is ~ 100 and 90 minutes, respectively, which
was shorter than the time required to steady situation of exp.
No. 3 (120 min, as shown in Fig. 3). The higher temperature
of air can accelerate both the preheating of the reactor and the
moisture evaporation of the woods in the start-up period.
On the other hand, as to exp. No. 7, even the air was
preheated up to 573 K, it seems to have marginal effect on the
heating value of producer gas and cold gas efficiency, as given
in Table 1. Although the mean HHV of producer gas increases
from 4.91 to 4.96 MJgNm-3 when the air was preheated from
the room temperature to 573 K, the cold gas efficiency slightly
decreases from 71% to 68%. The elevation of sensible heat of
gas by preheating the air streams seems to have a relatively
marginal effect on heating value of the producer gas as
compared with the airflow rate. Jayah et al. [6] simulated a
wood downdraft gasifier and found that the conversion
efficiency slightly increases from 56.0% to 57% when the
inlet air temperature increases from 300 K to 600 K.
4.4 Effect of moisture content of woods
Moisture content of feedstock can affect the temperature in
the fuel bed and consequently influences the heating value of
the producer gas of a gasifier. The wooden cubes used in exp.
No. 8 were oven dried at 378 K for four days to eliminate the
moisture. The conversion rate of oven-dried woods is
significantly higher than those of the other experiments (Table
1). It was also found that the time to reach the steady condition
of gasifier supplied with dry woods is ~ 50 minutes. Welker
[16] reported that the cellulosic materials almost completely
decompose to carbon-hydrogen rich gases at a very high
heating rate. The higher heat-up rate accelerates the thermal
decomposition of an oven-dried wooden particle, consequently
more combustible gas is released. On the contrary, results of
exp. No. 9 indicates that the gasifier performance such as the
conversion rate of woods, the flame spreading rate, and the
heating value of producer gas, were significantly interfered by
the relatively higher moisture content of woods, owing to the
much more energy consumed in moisture evaporation.
4.5 Modeling results
Fig.6 and 7 illustrate the measured and calculated profiles
of producer gas compositions and temperatures of exp. no. 3
under steady state condition. The order of reaction in Eq. (2)
was chosen as n = 0 to fit the oxygen depletion speed. A
constant value 0.8 for rco was assumed to achieve the best
 Characteristics of Air-blown Gasification for Woods in a Fixed-bed Downdraft Gasifier
agreement between predicted and experimental CCO and CCO2.
Fig.6 indicates that oxygen was rapidly depleted within a thin
flaming combustion region nearing the height of fair inlet. The
carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide concentrations increased
mainly due to the pyrolysis and flaming combustion reactions
in this thin flaming combustion region. In the gasification
region, hydrogen continuously increased form both the
Char-H2O gasification and water gas shift reactions, whereas
CO slightly decreased owing to the forward water gas shift
reaction.
Fig. 6 Measured and predicted profiles of producer gas
compositions of exp. No. 3
Fig.7 Experimental and estimated temperature
distributions of exp. No.3
Fig.7 shows that both the solid and gas temperatures
sharply increased to ~ 1300 K resulted from the exothermic
flaming combustion, and then dropped associated with the
endothermic reactions of char gasification. Discrepancy
between the experimental and the predicted outlet
temperatures is ~ 200 K. Cooper and Hallett [17] theoretically
simulated packed bed combustion of char particles and
pointed out that high thermal conductivity of steel grate can
cool the bottom of the fuel bed. Thermal conduction is not
included in this work and may lead to the discrepancy between
the estimated and the measured temperature. Discrepancy
between the measured and calculated producer gas
compositions may due to the uncertainties such as the rate
167
constants of kinetics and the grate heat loss estimation.
Nevertheless, the trend of calculated temperature is
qualitatively acceptable, and the calculated producer gas HHV
at the outlet of grate is 5145 kJgNm-3, which is close to the
measured HHV of 4911 kJgNm-3.
5 CONCLUSION
An experimental investigation of a small-scale fixed-bed
downdraft gasifier was performed in the present work. It was
observed that the gross conversion rate of woods increases
linearly with the increasing rate of air supply. The variations
of the heating value of producer gas and the cold gas
efficiency with air flow rate shows that the optimum rate of
cold air stream is ~ 15 Nm3 gh-1 for the best performance of
the downdraft gasifier built in this study. The optimum mean
HHV of producer gas obtained in this work, using woods with
18% of moisture content and cold air feeding, was ~ 5.2 MJ
Nm-3, which is comparable to the results of Walawender et al.
[7] and Barrio et al. [8]. It was observed that the flame
spreading speed significantly rose when the air was preheated
to 573 K. However, the preheating of air streams seems to
have marginal effect on quality of the produce gas. The
heating value of producer gas decreased with the increasing
moisture content of woods. A one-dimensional, steady state
model has been developed for calculating the axial profiles of
temperature and gas compositions of downdraft gasifier. The
model is adequate for predicting the producer gas heating
value.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by National Science Council of
ROC (NSC 94-2218-E-002-070) and Dai-East Incinerators
Inc., Taiwan.
REFERENCES
[1] T.B. Reed (ed.), Biomass Gasification – Principles and
Technology, Noyes Data Corporation, New York, 1981.
[2] A.V.Bridgwater,“The Technical and Economic Feasibility
of Biomass Gasification for Power Generation,” Fuel, 74,
No. 5, pp. 631-653, 1995.
[3] T.B. Reed, B. Levie, M. Markson, “A Mathematical Model
for Stratified Downdraft Gasifiers,” American Chemical
Society, Preprints of papers, Division of Fuel Chemistry,
28, No. 5, pp. 410-420, 1983.
[4] C. Di Blasi, “Dynamic Behavior of Stratified Downdraft
Gasifiers,” Chemical Engineering Science, 55, pp.
2931-2944, 2000.
[5] D.L. Giltrap, R. McKibbin, G.R.G. Barnes, “A Steady State
Model of Gas-Char Reactions in a Downdraft Biomass
Gasifier,” Solar Energy, 74, pp. 85-91, 2003.
[6] T.H. Jayah, L. Aye, R.J. Fuller, D.F. Stewart, “Computer
Simulation of a Downdraft Wood Gasidier, for Tea
Drying,” Biomass and Bioenergy, 25, pp. 459-469, 2003.
168 International Conference on Power Engineering-2007, October 23-27, 2007, Hangzhou, China
[7] W.P. Walawender, S.M. Cherm, L.T. Fan, “Wood Chip
Gasification in a Comercial Downdraft Gasifier,” In: R.P.
Overend, T.A. Milne and L.K. Mudge, Fundamental of
Thermochemical Biomass Conversion, Elsevier,
Amsterdam, pp. 911-921, 1985.
[8] M. Barrio, M. Fossum, J.E. Hustad, “Operational
Characteristics of a Small-Scale Stratified Downdraft
Gasifier,” In: Proceedings of the Sixth International
Conference on Technologies and Combustion for a Clean
Environment, Portugal, pp. 1269-1276, 2001.
[9] Z.A. Zainal, A. Rifau, G.A. Quadir, K.N. Seetharamu,
“Experimental Investigation of a Downdraft Biomass
Gasifier,” Biomass and Bioenergy, 23, pp. 283-289, 2002.
[10] M. Dogru, C.R. Howarth, G. Akay, B. Keskinler, A.A.
Malik, ”Gasification of Hazelnut Shell in a Downdraft
Gasifier,” Energy, 27, pp. 415-427, 2002.
[11] J.T. Kuo, “Estimation of Burning Rate in Solid Waste
Combustion Furnaces,” Combustion Science and
Technology, 137, pp. 1-29, 1998.
[12] K.M. Bryden, K.W. Ragland, “Numerical Modeling of a
Deep, Fixed Bed Combustor,” Energy and Fuels, 10, pp.
269-275, 1996.
[13] C. Di Blasi, “Modeling Wood Gasification in a
Countercurrent Fixed-Bed Reactor,” AIChE Journal, 50,
9, pp. 2306-2319, 2004.
[14] M.L Hobbs., P.T. Radulovic, L.D. Smoot, ” Combustion
and Gasification of Coals in Fixed-Beds,” Progress in
Energy and Combustion Science, 19, pp. 505-586, 1993.
[15] J.J. Saastamoinen, M. Horttanaienen, P. Sarkomaa,
“Ignition Wave Propagation and Release of Volatiles in
Beds of Wood Particles,” Combustion Science and
Technology, 165, pp. 41-60, 2001.
[16] J.R. Welker, “The Pyrolysis and Ignition of Cellulosic
Materials: A Literature Review,” Journal of Fire and
Flammability, 1, pp. 12-29, 1970.
[17] J. Cooper, W.L.H. Hallett, “A Numerical Model for
Packed-Bed Combustion of Char Particles,” Chemical
Engineering Science, 55, pp. 4451-4460, 2000.