Can a wood gasifier cut wood use in a large brass annealing furnace?
By weight, yes; by heat, barely. BEE's Jagadhri report cuts wood from 670 to 600 t a year, but the gasifier's dried chips carry 3,500 kcal a kg against 3,200 for logs, so heat input falls only 2%. Most of the Rs 12.15 lakh saving assumes cheaper chips. Cost Rs 9.32 lakh.
What BEE proposed
- Furnace: 8,500 kg annealed a day in one batch, about 10% efficient, 2,231 kg of logs a day, 670 t a year.
- Gasifier: 360 kW downdraft unit for 2 to 3 inch chips at 15% moisture, up to 120 kg an hour, 800 kg hopper filled by hand hourly, 6 HP of fans and drives.
- Rs 8.32 lakh for gasifier, burner, wood dryer, chipper and piping, Rs 1.00 lakh for design and electrical work: Rs 9.32 lakh. About a week of downtime.
Taking the Rs 12.15 lakh apart
- Logs: 670 t x Rs 4,500 = Rs 30.15 lakh. Chips: 600 t x Rs 3,000 = Rs 18.00 lakh.
- 70 t less wood at the same Rs 4,500: Rs 3.15 lakh.
- The other Rs 9.00 lakh is the lower price per tonne the report assumes for chips.
- Heat in: 670 x 3,200 = 2,144 million kcal; 600 x 3,500 = 2,100 million. Drier wood, nearly the same heat.
- Payback 0.77 years as written; about 3 years if chips cost what logs do.
Two assumptions to test
- Temperature: the base case heats the charge to 450 C, the gasifier case to 350 C, on the grounds that gas firing stops overshoot. Check the temperature your alloy actually needs; the report on electric bogie furnaces gives 600 to 650 C for brass.
- Chip price: get a written rate for dried, sized chips delivered, and count the chipper's and dryer's labour.
CO2: the report's 115 t is wood
The report's 115 t CO2 cut is the 70 t of wood not burnt. Wood CO2 is biogenic and reported separately, outside Scope 1, so the fossil cut is nil. The gasifier's 6 HP of fans and drives adds grid power. If 2,000 kg of chips a day at the rated 120 kg an hour means about 16 hours of running, that is roughly 21,500 kWh, about 14.5 t CO2 a year.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads your electricity bills into monthly records with CO2 for the units, so the gasifier's power shows on the first bill after it starts. It has no wood factor: keep wood tonnes and their calorific value on a separate biogenic line.
- Green loan readiness check
- Brass annealing: wood to electric bogie
- Aluminium melting: oil to wood gasifier
- Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster
Sources: BEE, Detailed project report: wood gasifier for annealing furnace (above 3 tonne), Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster (2010, SAMEEEKSHA), BEE, Detailed project report: bogie brass annealing furnace (60 kW), Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster (2010, SAMEEEKSHA), GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22.0
Last reviewed 2026-11-01. Report figures are from a BEE SME programme project report; costs and paybacks are at 2010 prices. Check today's wood and chip prices.