Energy, exergy and sustainability analysis of rice husk air gasification process

Abstract

Biomass is one of the renewable energy sources to produce power with zero carbon dioxide emission, biomass gasification process considered as a sustainable technology for energy conversion. This paper deals with rice husk air gasification simulation using non- stoichiometric equilibrium model based on Gibbs free energy minimisation. FACTSAGE 6.3 software used to calculate gas composition at temperature range 600 - 1000°C and equivalence ratio (ϕ) range 0.15 - 0.55. Maximum gas mixture exergy of 9551.7 kJ per kg of rice husk is obtained at ϕ=0.25 and 725°C. Chemical exergy contributes 89.90 - 94.85% of total gas mixture exergy, cold gas efficiency and exergetic efficiency varies in the range of 25.19 - 70.71% and 23.11 - 62.24% respectively in operating condition. Rice husk gasification process analysed by evaluating, sustainability index (SI) and environmental destruction factor (Ced).