About Gasification Boilers

A Gasification Boiler is one of the most energy efficient boilers commercially available today.
A traditional wood burning boiler may be only efficient as 30 to 40%.Where as a gasification boiler can be as high in energy efficiency as 95%.


This means it will save a tidy sum for the owners of such equipment while operating
on renewable and inexpensive fuel.

Some information about gasification boilers are quite a revelation.

The technology is centuries old!
The process of gasification of solid fuels was discovered around
1839 and is credited to scientist Bischof.


The gas was called (Producer gas and still is!) and the fuel used was coal and coke a fuel common those days.
The gas was used for street and building lighting and cooking and stayed that way for nearly a century
while giving momentum to industrial revolution.

One can easily say gasification technology is time tested over centuries!

Producer gas is a mixture of gases
Producer gas is a mixture of combustible and non combustible gases.
The gas which is also called syn gas and more recently wood gas
(when biomass was the primary fuel used) typically consists of the following gases;

• Carbon Monoxide Gas (CO)    -           22%
• Hydrogen Gas  (H2)                  -           18%
• Methane Gas (CH4)                  -           03%
• Carbon Dioxide (CO2) -           06%
• Nitrogen Gas (N2)                    -           51%

Products of gasification are energy rich
All products of gasification are not fuels but the first three in the above list are good fuels.
As a matter of fact Hydrogen gas is about the most potent fuel there is.
The combustion of these gases releases a tremendous amount of thermal energy
which can be easily utilized for beneficial use such as space heating.

Gasification of Bio Mass
In gasification a primary fuel is burned in an atmosphere of reduced Oxygen.
The primary fuel in this chemical reaction of combustion has to be a compound of Hydrogen and carbon.
All fossil fuels too are made this way but unfortunately they are not renewable sources of energy.
With the products of combustion they contribute to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
However biomass which can be any living or recently dead plant (or animal) matter too is composed of elements
Carbon and Hydrogen and can easily be combusted. The traditional process is however very inefficient.

The traditional fuel is also logs of wood which are getting scarcer and scarcer.
However mountains of wood waste are just burnt away all over the world for the lack of any useful application.
The scientists therefore devised the wood pellets, briquettes etc which can substitute for logs as the primary fuel in boilers. But it does not mean other biomass matter such as corncobs and kernels, pine cones,
coconut shells and many others cannot be used .
This will however depend on the design of the boiler.

In the Boiler the top chamber is filled with the Biomass and ignited (generally automatic in modern units) in an atmosphere short of Oxygen,
leading to gasification. Certain quality standards need to be observed in the fuel however for higher efficiency.

What size of unit is required for my house?
As a rule of thumb each 8 m2 (or less) require 1 kw of heating.
This is only a guideline for any preliminary work. A proper heat load calculation using modern
software such as E-20-11 is ideally required.

What is the operational cost reduction one can expect from gasification boilers?
In general the cost of Electricity used in heating or Fossil fuel burned in a Boiler is 3 times that
of biomass for the same duty. Heating with natural gas is twice expensive as the use of biomass for equivalent duty.

What is the moisture content of the Biomass that should be maintained?
A maximum moisture content of 20 to 30% is required for best efficiency.
Otherwise smoke may result and less heat will be produced.

What is the Burn time per loading of a gasification boiler?
This varies depending on the model of the Boiler and the construction of the building etc.
In general it may vary from 30 hours to 90 hours.

Gasification boilers are gaining popularity all over the world as thy provide solutions for several burning issues.
From your personal point of view nothing may be more important than balancing the home budget.
A serious consideration of gasification boilers for your heating requirements therefore won’t go a waste.

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