Performance Analysis of Mobile Vertical Burner Using Various Types of Biomass Pellets

Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Gadjah Mada University, 55281 Yogyakarta, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: makbul.hajad@ugm.ac.id

Abstract

The high availability of biomass waste in the agricultural sector as an energy source promises sustainable energy for drying agriculture product. The low efficiency of air heating of biomass burners due to their separate design from the heat exchanger. This study aims to analyse the effect of various types of biomass pellets on the performance of a mobile vertical burner according to the air heating system efficiency and carbon emission production. This experiment used biomass waste from tea plantations as raw material for the pellets. There are three variations of biomass pellets used in this study: black pellet (A), mixed pellet (B), and white pellet (C). An analysis for the efficiency of the air heating system is conducted at six different heating process levels. The analysis showed that the mobile vertical burner machine can provide up to 1,028 CFM with a temperature of 89.9°C. The highest air heating efficiency is achieved using black pellet [80.6%], followed by mixed pellet [75.2%], and white pellet [71.4%]. Carbon monoxide gas emission production from this machine ranges from 33,6-114,8 ppm. These results indicate that black pellets have the potential to improve air heating efficiency with low gas emission production.