Fuel Characteristics of Some Indigenous Plants

It is well known that fossil fuel combustion has tremendous negative impact on ecology and global climate. It is non renewable as well. The present rate of technological and economic growth of a country may be unsustainable due to rapid consumption of fossil fuel like crude oil, natural gas or coal. Thus people search for viable renewable energy sources like biomass, hydropower, geothermal energy, wind energy, solar energy, etc from time to time. Surplus biomass application for partial substitution of conventional fuel both in heat and power mode is an attractive option for developing country like India. It is normally techno-economically viable for most of small scale industrial process heat generation or allied applications. Biomass contains Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen negligible amount of Sulphur. Biomass energy conversion can be achieved through several thermo chemical processes such as combustion, pyrolysis and gasification, etc. The present work investigates the fuel characteristics of some selected locally available fast growing plants such as Bamboo (Banbuseae Tulda), Gulmohar(Delonix Regia), Neem(Azadirachta Indica), Dimaru (Ficus Lepidosa Wall) and Sisham(Delbergia Sissoo). The lower heating value of different samples were found to vary from (15.95 – 18.40) MJ kg -1 on dry basis by automatic bomb calorimeter. From preliminary gasification study of this biomass (moisture ≤ 15 % w.b.) in a laboratory scale down draft biomass gasifier, it responded well for gasification. Some more long duration gasification studies may be required before recommending these indigenous fast growing plants for commercial scale gasification in some prospective industries.