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 conversion 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/Nm ³ to 3.3 MJ/Nm ³ and 1 wt% to 0.76 wt%, respectively. Napkin loading of 1.4 wt% gives the best LHV and CGE of 4.05 MJ/Nm ³ and 61.7%. Results reveal that the reactor can smoothly operate up to 3.8 wt% loading, generating producer gas flame temperature above 950 °C suitable for a wide range of thermal applications.