The schematic of the experiment in shown in Fig. 3. The stove is
100 mm dia 130 mm long cylindrical chamber with a grate at the
bottom, conforming to the actual commercialized design. Air for
gasification comes from the bottom and for combustion of gasification
products is supplied on top of the bed from 18 holes of 5 mm
dia each. The air flow rates are controlled with a calibrated variable
area rotameters. The stove was loaded with about 400 g of wood
pieces 10–15 mm size and placed on a balance (0.5 g precision)
to enable continuous mass measurement during the test. The ignition
process involved placing some kerosene soaked waste cotton
over the bed and lighting the cotton. This was followed by supplying
a known flow rate of primary air. In select experiments performed
without the vessel, the secondary air holes were blocked
to avoid any possible influence of that on the measurement of composition.
Gas samples extracted from the stove were analysed after
removal of water vapour for various components – CO, CO2, H2, O2
and CH4 using Maihak gas analyser. No hydrocarbon other than