1. Introduction
Global energy consumption has increased in the year 2010 after
a downturn in the year 2009 [1]. The primary energy consumption
alone grew by 5.6% during the year 2010. It is the strongest growth
since 1973 [2]. It is important to ensure adequate power supply for
a sustainable economic growth rate of more than 8% per year.
Biomass fuel is one of the potential resources to produce electricity
and to meet the growing energy demand in India. About 78 million
rural households in India do not have access to the grid [3]. In the
year 2005, the Ministry of Power launched one of its flagship programs
e Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY). The
objective of this program is to provide access to electricity to the
dwellers of 1.20 lakh un-electrified villages. This program also aims
to provide free electricity to 2.34 crores of rural households living
below the poverty line. In the year 2012 the program has achieved
more than 87.5% of the target. Under this initiative the per capita
energy consumption envisaged, is in the order of 50 kWh per person
per annum. This is far below the national average per capita
energy consumption, which is at the tune of 400 kWh [4]. This is a
clear indicator of a huge deficit to be met in the immediate future.
So, there is an urgent need to have an alternative source of power to
improve the current scenario. Biomass fuel is one of the potential
sources of energy, which can be used to produce power even in
remote locations.
Biomass fuel is converted into gaseous fuel through a thermochemical
process. In this process gaseous fuel is produced from
biomass by partial combustion [5e7]. The combustible gas produced
from biomass is known as producer gas. The producer gas
consists of a mixture of combustible and non-combustible gases.
The combustible fraction consists of hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide
(CO) and methane (CH4). The non-combustible fraction
consists of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2) and moisture (H2O).
This producer gas can be used as a fuel in a furnace as an alternate
heat source for industrial heating applications. The producer gas
can be supplied to an internal combustion engine to produce
electricity. Use of biomass gasification for electricity generation is
presented in Ref. [8]. This paper brings out several challenges
related to the impurities in gas and cleaning technologies. The tar
and dust content in the gas and challenges related to the existing
gas cleaning processes are acting as barriers. In order to overcome
the barriers, key parameters that have greater influence on system
performance were identified. Based on the identified key parameters
different gasifier designs were compared and analyzed in details.
This research work is focused to design and develop an
efficient gasifier system to produce clean gas, which is suitable for