Co-gasification of sanitary napkin with sawdust biomass in downdraft gasifier for thermal applications: An experimental approach

Co-gasification is considered an effective treatment method for waste containing plastics and biomass for con-version into producer gas. This paper investigates treating personal hygiene care products like sanitary napkin waste by co-gasification with sawdust biomass pellets in a 50 KWh capacity downdraft gasifier to generate producer gas for thermal applications. The present experimental study is one of its kind for treating sanitary napkins waste via co-gasification technology that focuses on energy generation. Water loaded sanitary napkin content was increased from 0 wt% to 3.8 wt% in the total feedstock to evaluate the producer gas quality. Moisture plays dominant role compared to presence of plastic in a napkin with increasing napkin content. Increasing the napkin content in total feedstock from 0 wt% to 3.8 wt% leads to temperature decrease of all reaction zones in the gasifier. In contrast, LHV and clinker formation was reduced from 4.03 MJ/Nm3 to 3.3 MJ/ Nm3 and 1 wt% to 0.76 wt%, respectively. Napkin loading of 1.4 wt% gives the best LHV and CGE of 4.05 MJ/ Nm3 and 61.7%. Results reveal that the reactor can smoothly operate up to 3.8 wt% loading, generating producer gas flame temperature above 950 degrees C suitable for a wide range of thermal applications.