Establishing Auto Gasification of Cashew Shells for Decentralised Power Generation

Gasification is a process which converts biomass into producer gas. It can replace fossil fuels and electricity into cooking and room heating applications to a greater extent rather than importing fossil fuels from other countries, by proper reinventing over old gasification technology to use the existing biomass to the maximum possible extent. Mostly gasification is preferable for a decentralized approach in power generation. As biomass is scattered in nature, this technology is viable for converting waste to useful form of energy. This paper attempts in gasifying cashew-nut shell for heat and power generation. India holds third position for production of cashew nut about 613, 000 Mt per annum (out of that 50% of the weight is in shell). But completely utilizing the cashew-nut shells we can produce about 2.7 × 10⁶ MJ per annum (i.e. 175 MW). Hence, a novel gasification method for cashew-nutshells has been proposed and tested.