Design of a Gasification Reactor for Manufacturing and Operation in West Africa

This paper introduces the design of a biomass gasification reactor with specific constraints for its manufacturing and operation in the West African conditions. The foreseen applications are the valorisation into heat and electricity of agricultural biomass residues. Rice husk is chosen as the reference fuel for the design. Local manufacturing is a key feature and the main focus of the design, as it allows us to reduce the capital costs and facilitate the maintenance. The design methodology is based on the conceptual approach proposed by Cross. This approach leads in several steps to a rational design choice based on the evaluation of different solutions. In this study, nine reactor types have been compared leading to a prototype that best suits the defined objectives such as a local manufacturing, a secure installation and a sufficient gas quality. From this conception approach, the Semi-Batch, Fixed-bed reactor with air Aspiration appears the most suitable. Its specific characteristics for the foreseen application are a power of 44 kW based on the syngas lower heating value, an average fuel consumption of 20.38 kg/h and an average air flow of 28.8 kg/h for optimal gasification. The gasifier resulting from the design methodology has been built. It is presented in the paper.