Development of Gasifier for Sugar Palm Powder Solid Waste Gasification

Sugar palm powder is a raw material for various food products. Solid wastes produced during the powder processing have not yet been utilized properly. Gasification of the wastes by converting them into gaseous fuel could be an alternative to solve the waste problem. The objective of this research was to develop downdraft gasifier suitable for solid waste of sugar palm powder. The performance of the gasifier was determined by its temperature distribution, gas composition, gas production, and heat. The result showed that solid waste of sugar palm powder are potential to be used as gasification fuel. The gasification process was optimum at gasifier having greater than 70 degrees tilt angle of pyrolysis chamber, 180 mm diameter of combustion chamber, and 200 mm height of reduction chamber, and using air flow rate of 11 m(3)/h. The performace of the gasification were: (1) average temperature in gasification chamber, combustion chamber, and pyrolysis chamber were 172 degrees C, 353 degrees C, and 135 degrees C, respectively; (2) gas composition of H-2, CO, CH4, O-2, CO2, and N-2 were 7,4%, 18,1%, 1,5%, 2,7%, 6,8%, and 58,0%, respectively; (3) gas production was18 m(3)/hour; and (4) heat was 2 MJ/kg.