Performance evaluation of groundnut shell in a downdraft gasifier

In India total Groundnut production was 7.54 Million Tonnes during 2010–11, approximately 45% – 50% is from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. There are many Groundnut oil producing industries in these states. Disposal of these biomass residues is a problem, since it is difficult to burn groundnut shell waste at atmospheric condition. This situation makes people to focus on sustainable energy resources for waste disposal. One of the technique is Gasification, which is a thermo-chemical conversion process that enables conversion of groundnut shell into producer gas which can be used for power generation. As a raw material, groundnut shells have attractive potential for large scale industries and community level enterprises for power generation. With the above Groundnut production, the production potential per ton of waste is calculated to be 4905 kWh/ton and Energy from waste is calculated to be 2013 MW. Optimization has been made to enhance specific calorific value of producer gas in the downdraft gasifier.