Performance of cyclone separator for syngas production in downdraft gasifier

The excess use of conventional sources of energy by the industries and power sector result in acute shortage of energy produced by fossil fuel. To overcome this energy crisis, biomass feedstock is used to produce syngas or producer gas. For cleaning the dust particle present in the producer gas cyclone separators are largely used. In this paper we investigate the performance parameters of cyclone separator mainly efficiency and pressure drop for different feedstock. Cyclone performance has been evaluated based on experimentation and empirical approach using Leith and Licht model. The same has also been calculated by using turbulent RSM in Ansys Fluent for Wood and Coconut shell feedstock. Experimental results show that using feed stock with 10 % Calcium oxide (CaO) by weight, the efficiency of cyclone got reduced from 71.87% to 70.75% for wood feed stock, whereas in case of coconut shell, the cyclone efficiency got reduced from 78% to 73.44%. It is also seen that Leith and Licht model and Reynolds stress model (RMS) predicts very close to the particle collection efficiency evaluated by using experimental data.