Thermodynamic equilibrium modeling of producer gas from gasification of maize cob

Abstract

Maize cob biomass is an abundant refuse in the predominantly agricultural Ugandan economy. Gasification is a thermochemical process that converts biomass into fuel gas. In this report, MATLAB was used to forecast percentage mole fractions of components produced. The predicted accuracy of the model was verified by means of comparison with experimental data from the literature. The root means the square error of 3.74 was computed as a measure of the deviation of simulated results from the experimental data. The gasification temperature chosen was 1073K and a moisture content of 20% of the maize cob biomass was assumed. The mole percentage composition of producer gas from the maize cob was: hydrogen 22.75%, methane 0.70%, carbon dioxide 11.75%, carbon monoxide 21.59%, and nitrogen 43.2%. Keywords: gasification, producer gas, thermochemical, biomass.