Can brass melting move from coke to a wood gasifier, and how is CO2 shown?

Yes, and fossil CO2 falls by about 360 t a year on BEE's Jagadhri figures, though the report lists the cut as Nil. A gasifier burning 270 t of wood chips replaces 134.4 t of coke, with 8 litres of furnace oil a melt still used. Payback 0.93 years at 2010 prices.

Before and after, per 600 kg melt

• Coke pit furnace: 112 kg of coke at Rs 22 a kg, Rs 2,464 a melt.
• Gasifier: 225 kg of chips at Rs 3 (Rs 675), power Rs 41, extra labour Rs 80, and 8 litres of furnace oil (Rs 200): Rs 996.
• Saving Rs 1,468 a melt, Rs 2,447 a tonne; 4 melts a day for 300 days: Rs 17.62 lakh a year.
• Gasifier: 200 kW downdraft, chips at 15% moisture, up to 175 kg an hour, 6 HP of fans and drives.
• Cost: Rs 14.38 lakh for gasifier, burner, dryer, chipper and piping, Rs 2.00 lakh civil and fitting: Rs 16.38 lakh.

How to show the CO2

1. Scope 1 drops by the coke you stop buying, at its CO2 factor.
2. Scope 1 adds the furnace oil the gasifier still needs, 9,600 litres a year here.
3. Scope 1 adds the wood fire's methane and nitrous oxide. They are small.
4. Scope 2 adds the gasifier's electricity, from your bills.
5. The wood's own CO2 goes on a separate biogenic line, outside the scopes. The report calls the project Nil and even says emissions rise, because it treats wood CO2 as fossil. Under the GHG Protocol that is wrong.

Check your coke per melt first

This report's worked example puts a 600 kg melt at 112 kg of coke. Its own cluster table, 96 t a year, and BEE's other Jagadhri reports use 80 kg for the same furnace. At 80 kg the coke cut is 96 t, the CO2 cut about 250 t, and the saving about Rs 9.2 lakh a year, still a payback under two years. Weigh coke for every melt for a month and use your own figure.

Brass and CBAM

Brass is not a CBAM good, so this changes no EU border charge. It does change the per tonne figure a buyer's supplier survey will ask for, and the evidence is wood and coke invoices plus electricity bills.

One furnace, 1,200 melts, 720 t of brass

• Coke removed: 134.4 t x 3.02 = 405.9 t CO2
• Furnace oil added: 9,600 litres x 2.97 = 28.5 t CO2
• Power added: about 10,900 kWh x 0.675 = 7.4 t CO2
• Wood methane and nitrous oxide: about 7.5 t CO2e
• Net cut about 362 t CO2e: from 564 to 60 kg a tonne of brass

Coke at the IPCC 2006 default (107,000 kg CO2 per TJ at 28.2 GJ a tonne); furnace oil at our 2.97 kg a litre; grid at CEA's FY 2025-26 factor. Power estimated from Rs 41 a melt at the Rs 4.5 a kWh used in BEE's other Jagadhri reports. Wood, 270 t at 3,500 kcal a kg, gives about 443 t of biogenic CO2, reported separately. Estimates.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads coke and furnace oil invoices and electricity bills into monthly records linked to each bill, with CO2 for the oil and power. It has no coke or wood factor, so apply the coke figure above and keep wood on its own biogenic line.

• Green loan readiness check
• Brass: coke pit furnace to induction
• Aluminium melting: oil to wood gasifier
• Efficient coke pit furnace for brass

Sources: BEE, Detailed project report: wood gasifier for coke fired brass melting furnace (600 kg), Jagadhri brass and aluminium cluster (2010, SAMEEEKSHA), GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy, Tables 1.2 and 2.3, 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 coke, chip and oil prices.