Investigation and Performance Evaluation of Organic Filter for Removal of Tar and SPM

Abstract

Producer gas obtained from biomass gasification contains organic impurities (Tar), inorganic
impurities and suspended particulate matter in addition to the main components. Tar, which is in
sticky nature, can cause severe operational problems such as fouling and blocking of the pipes
and equipment. Most applications of Producer gas require a low Tar content (less than 50 mg/
Nm3 for motive power application, less than 5 mg/Nm3 for turbine application, and even less
than 1 mg/Nm3 for fuel cell). Therefore, these contaminants must be removed before the producer
gas is used for motive power application and/or fuel cells and methanol synthesis. Several
technologies are available for Tar removal. Here an organic filter are used for Tar removal due to
easily available, cheaper than other technologies and creates less impact on environment. The
producer gas passing through different organic filter components (such as gram straw, coconut
husk and egg shell) could clean the impurity present with them. This paper provides the
performance evaluation and saturation time of different organic filter components for removal of
Tar. The saturation time of organic filter was found in the range of 9-10 hours and percentage of
tar removal was between 65 to 70%. Hence, overall Tar removal efficiency of the entire system
including modified air heat exchanger was found to be 74.84%.