**5. General conclusion**

As Thailand is an agricultural base country, there are a lot of agricultural residues left over. These residues can be used as alternative fuel to replace the conventional fuel which needs to be imported from foreign countries. PEFB is one of the most available agricultural residues generated from palm oil industry. From this study, it can be found that PEFB, especially pelletized PEFB, has a very high potential to be used as alternative fuel for power production via gasification process. The producer gas obtained from a laboratory scale downdraft gasifier at the air flow rate of 33 Nm3/hr consists of 19.02 % wt. CO, 13.32 % wt. H2, 2.78 % wt. CH4 and 16.58 % wt. CO2. Its heating value of 4.77 MJ/Nm3 can be achieved with the cold gas efficiency of 45.42 %. The reaction temperature has been classified on 4 different zones; less than 200 °C for drying zone, 200-600 °C for pyrolysis zone, 600-1000 °C for oxidation zone and 400-800 °C for reduction zone. The producer gas obtained from a prototype scale downdraft gasifier posses a very high heating value varied from 5.18-6.99 MJ/Nm3 depending on the air flow rate. At the optimum air flow rate of 110 Nm3/hr, the producer gas contains 23.74 % wt. CO, 15.48 % wt. H2, 2.97 % wt. CH4 and 10.01 % wt. CO2. The heating value is 5.64 MJ/Nm3 which can effectively replace the diesel consumption in the internal combustion engine-generator. The diesel replacement rate of more than 80 % can be obtained at the electrical load of 24 kW and the overall efficiency is 16.36 %. From this study, it can be concluded that PEFB can be used as alternative fuel for heat or electricity production, for eco-friendly and sustainable development in Thailand.

#### **6. Acknowledgements**

The authors would like to appreciate Faculty of Engineering and Science Technology Research Institute of King Mongkut's University of Technology for the financial support.

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