www.tjprc.org SCOPUS Indexed Journal editor@tjprc.org APPLICATION OF PRODUCER GAS FROM SOUTH SUMATERA, INDONESIA, LOW RANK COAL GASIFICATION ON SPARK IGNITION ENGINE OR GASOLINE ENGINE FAJRI VIDIAN, SAFRIALTO, HASAN BASRI & HELMY ALIAN Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Sriwijaya, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia ABSTRACT The substitution of oil fuel to coal continued to increase by the government of Indonesia that has been implemented on energy mix program. In this study, the low rank coal of South Sumatera, Indonesia was converted to producer gas, using gasification process. The gasification process was carried out on the downdraft gasifier equipped with a cleaning system. The equivalent ratio of the gasification process was in the range of 0.24 to 0.25. Combustible gas produced was very stable from the beginning to the end of the process. The producer gas was used to drive a spark ignition engine on dual fuel operations. The study was conducted using a maximum electrical load of 1 kW. The results of the study showed, the gasoline consumption rate was increased from 0.53 L/h to 0.68 L/h with increasing of electrical load in dual fuel operation. The maximum and the average of gasoline savings were 16.6 % and 15.3%, respectively. The specific gasoline consumption rate decreased from 1.83 L/kWh to 0.68 L/kWh. KEYWORDS: Gasification, Low Rank Coal, Producer Gas & Spark Ignition Engine Received: Jun 01, 2019; Accepted: Jun 21, 2019; Published: Sep 20, 2019; Paper Id.: IJMPERDOCT201953 1. INTRODUCTION Coal is a fossil energy source that is almost used by all developing countries to produce electricity, where approximately 42% of the world's electricity is supplied from coal [1–3]. Increasing the role of coal in replacing oil fuels continues to be improved by the Indonesian government through the energy mix program in 2015 and national energy police 2025 [4], the composition of coal target increase from 27% to 30%. The electrification of rural area with power about 10 kWe (generator sets) is effort to support the government program. The use of small spark ignition engines (genset) has a huge advantage for people's lives caused be uses in remote area [5]. The conversion of coal into electrical energy can be done by various methods; one of method is gasification process. Coal is converted into producer or gas syngas on gasification. The downdraft is a type of fixed gasifier that could be used for coal gasification process [6]. Spark ignition engine is one of the internal combustion engines that can be applied as syngas or producer gas as fuel [7]. Several studies have been conducted to use the producer gas from biomass gasification in spark ignition engines [8–15]. The increasing of performance and decreasing of emission on small scale spark ignition have been done by [16–19]. The use of producer gas on the spark ignition engine can be done with a single fuel and dual fuel operation. Single fuel spark ignition operation is constrained by the low of calorific value of producer gas [20]. Muhammad et al., [21] used producer gas from coal gasification with a calorific value of 5891 cal/kg on single fuel spark ignition engine, the test results showed a decreasing about 45% of engine power when using producer gas. The research used producer gas from coal gasification to drive spark ignition engine with the dual fuel operation is still rare. Wusana et al., [22] carried out to research on the operation Original Article International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering Research and Development (IJMPERD) ISSN (P): 2249–6890; ISSN (E): 2249–8001 Vol. 9, Issue 5, Oct 2019, 611–620 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.