Electrical power generation potential of arhar pulse residue

Abstract

Electricity is one of the basic infrastructures required for economic development of any nation. Even after 63 years of independence, there are still many remote villages in India without any electricity supply. Plenty of agricultural wastes are generated in countries like India which are based on agricultural economy. Lot of work is been done on their waste disposal and reutilisation. However, no work has been reported in literature for exploring the potential of agricultural wastes generated due to arhar crop for electrical power generation. In this work, experiments have been conducted for the proximate analysis and finding energy content of different components of residue of arhar. The net energy content in arhar was found to be satisfactorily high. Based on this experimental finding, their potential towards electrical power generation and corresponding land requirement for energy plantations have been calculated. The results show that approximately 4311 hectares of land are required to generate 20 MWh/day. The results have also been compared with that of coal samples obtained from six different local mines. This comparison reveals much higher power output with negligible emission of suspended particulate matters from this biomass material. The ash fusion temperatures of arhar residue have also been experimentally found out and it is observed that they can be used safely up to a temperature of 9650 C without any clinker formation in the boiler of used in power plant.