The increasing demand of energy has shifted the focus of power production from conventional fuels to alternative fuel. Producer gas generated from wood waste through gasification process can be a good alternative fuel for power production via IC engine. In rural areas, the agriculture residue waste can be utilized in biomass gasifier to generate producer gas to be utilized in IC engine in single fuel mode. In this study, a 10 hp diesel engine was modified to spark ignited engine by adopting battery ignition system followed by spark plug, ignition coil and distributor assembly. The modified engine was connected to the downdraft gasifier which was loaded with wood waste (i.e. Acacia Nilotica). The Producer gas (PG) was generated from downdraft gasifier and fed to the modified engine in spark ignited mode and various performance parameters were evaluated. The maximum brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of 19.8% was obtained at 3.99 kW brake power (BP). Producer gas, due to its low calorific value and lean nature, exhibited the lowest brake power and highest BSFC and BSEC. The utilization of producer gas in IC engines in single fuel mode can eliminate the use of conventional fuel. The novelty of this study lies in the exclusive single-fuel utilization of wood-waste-derived producer gas in a modified diesel engine which has potential to completely eliminate conventional fuel usage and offers a viable solution for managing solid waste in rural areas, and sustainable power generation.
Attri et al. (Sat,) studied this question.