Abstract
AbstractTo convert woody biomass into electricity with small capacity and high efficiency, it is reasonable to gasify the woody biomass and operate a reciprocating engine. On the other hand, bio-syngas produced from woody biomass have a low calorific value. Therefore, if the concepts of the thermal efficiency and the losses (the cooling loss, the combustion loss, the pumping loss, the exhaust loss, etc.) obtained by conventional fossil fuels are applied as these are, it is not possible to predict the thermal efficiency appropriately. In this paper, the bio-syngas as the reference is produced in a self-made gasification system, and the thermal efficiency and the losses of the reciprocating engine are experimentally examined to evaluate the significant effect of combustible components on these indicators. The combustible components are hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. The nitrogen fraction in the bio-syngas is adjusted to control the low heating value. A commercially available small general-purpose spark-ignition reciprocating engine (GP-SIRE) was modified and used as the experimental engine. The results showed that (1) the operation with the referenced bio-syngas exhibits higher thermal efficiency (more than 10 points) than that with the conventional methane, and that (2) there is a trade-off between the combustion loss and the cooling loss.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
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