Gasifier selection, design and gasification of oil palm fronds with preheated and unheated gasifying air

Oil palm frond biomass is abundantly available in Malaysia, but underutilized. In this study, gasifiers were evaluated based on the available literature data and downdraft gasifiers were found to be the best option for the study of oil palm fronds gasification. A downdraft gasifier was constructed with a novel height adjustment mechanism for changing the position of gasifying air and steam inlet. The oil palm fronds gasification results showed that preheating the gasifying air improved the volumetric percentage of H2 from 8.47% to 10.53%, CO from 22.87% to 24.94%, CH4 from 2.02% to 2.03%, and higher heating value from 4.66 to 5.31 MJ/Nm3 of the syngas. In general, the results of the current study demonstrated that oil palm fronds can be used as an alternative energy source in the energy diversification plan of Malaysia through gasification, along with, the resulting syngas quality can be improved by preheating the gasifying air.

► A novel laboratory-scale single throat downdraft gasifier was developed.
► An air and steam inlet height adjustment mechanism was incorporated in the gasifier.
► Preheating the gasifying air improved the percentage of combustible gases.
► The syngas of oil palm fronds was comparable with that from other biomass feedstock.