Gasification is a process of breaking down of organic matter into mixture of its constituent gaseous components like methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, often called Syngas which is a good fuel. Syngas can be burned directly in gas engines to produce hydrogen and methane which can be used separately or can be converted into a synthetic fuel by Tropsch-Fischer method or to generate electricity. Though this is a 180-year-old process but has developed all the way to improve its efficiency. It is even more efficient than combustion of regular fuel as it can be combusted at higher temperatures like in a fuel cell. The energy produced by syngas is four to ten mega joules per cubic meter.
All it requires mostly is biomass which is a biological waste, or a biodegradable material, such as wood, wastes of the sewage, alcohol and industrial biomass comprising of switch grass, poplar, sorghum, sugarcane, hemp, miscanthus, willow and tree species like eucalyptus and palm. This is a renewable and reusable source of energy and can be employed to do many industrial processes like power generation and clean cremation. Biomass has been used since years to produce heat and biogas which is another important entity with efficient fuel value. Now biomass is becoming a commercial product and is being employed in many places for many purposes.
Multipurpose gasifiers can be utilized for power generation.
Gasifier Crematoriums can be used for clean, quick and affordable cremation comparative to the electrical cremation. It does not need 100 kW of power supply for doing it. The cremation ends up soon in a period of 80 to 90 minutes. This is done by powering the blower with 1 HP, and 100 to 125 KG wood per hour. The output of these gasifiers is 250,000 Kcal per hour. The wood chips should be cut using Wood Chip Cutters 15 to 75 mm. The moisture content in the wood should be lower than 15%. It also requires a floor space of 15' to 16'. The chips can be loaded in the machine manually. There are some companies which provide cremation facilities along with the gasifiers as well which constitute of a bed fixed on a moving trolley. Once put on the bed and completed with all rituals the body is pushed in to the fixed dome
gasifiers. The wood chip cutter has blades of 16' diameter and 5 to 12.5 HP motor with blade speed of 2000 to 2800 rpm that can cut off 50 to 400 kgs of wood per hour.
