Case study of SPRERI natural draft gasifier installation at a ceramic industry

The Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute has recently introduced its natural draft gasifier burner system to replace the use of light fuel oil in ceramic product drying. The unit (rated at 350 kWth) consumed about 80 kgh−1 of sawmill residues in the form of slabs 8 and 12 cm long, 5–7 cm wide, and 2.5–3 cm thick. The oil replacement is about 17 lh−1. Two types of batch driers, a rotary kiln and a tray drier, are used to dry the ceramic material from 20% to 10% moisture on a total mass basis. The tray drier is also used to dry molded ceramics in addition to the dewatered raw material ceramic cake. The cost savings over LFO are reduced by a factor of four to five units cost of output and the system repays its investment in less than two months.