Design and Development of Sand Bed Filter for Upgrading Producer Gas to IC Engine Quality Fuel

Abstract

Engine quality producer gas must be almost free of solid particulate matters (SPM) and organic contaminants (Tar) to minimize engine wear and maintenance. Except for the catalytic tar crackers, none of the gas cleaning systems commercially available can securely meet a tar removal exceeding 90 % and hence new concepts for tar removal are required. This paper presents a design and development work of sand filter for upgrading producer gas to IC engine quality fuel. The developed sand filter was tested for its performance with SPRERI’S 20 kWe down draft circular throat type gasifier with engine set up. The experimental investigations show that the percentage reduction in tar and particulate matters is above 90 %. The total amount of tar and particulate matters was 319 mg N^-1m^-3 and 53mg N^-1m^-3 before and after filter respectively.