Abstract

                                Conventional practice of drying natural rubber is through biomass combustion with rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) wood used as fuel in smoke house. It creates unhealthy environment in around the rubber producers’ society, leads to poor efficiency and inferior quality of rubber production. In order to en- hance fuel efficiency the attempt was made to investigate the charecteristics analysis-3of rubber wood for biomass gasification. Producer gas generated from biomass gasification is 852 Kcalm . Thermo-grav- imetric analysis of fuel wood was revealed for various heating rate as 10, 20, 30 and 40°C min-1 with degradation temperature of 1000°C. The moisture content can be easily removed in the temperature range of 20 ⁰C to 100 ⁰C and volatile matter can be removed in between 200⁰C and 400⁰C.

Key words : Rubber wood, proximate analysis, TGA, gasification