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E verything, in essence, is about energy. Energy has a key role in the stability of a country and is at the forefront of social, environmental and financial security problems (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012). Energy streams have a crucial part in the evolving and financial advancement for a country. Being a developing nation, Pakistan is meeting with severe energy crisis, decelerating its economic development. Energy requirements in Pakistan are generally fulfilled by oil, liquefied gasoline, and natural gas resources. In elec-Abstract | Energy is a crucial factor and a capital of a country's resources leading indicator. World's energy focus is shifting towards alternate renewable, cheap and environment-friendly resources that can provide long-term sustainability for survival. Due to the fossil fuels depletion and their ever-growing cost, the need to shift focus towards renewable energy resources has increased a lot. To overcome the above-said problems, there is a need to look for a feasible and robust solution for thermal applications in remote areas. Biomass gasification proved to be one of the most efficient and clean waste-to-energy conversion processes in contrast to direct combustion of agricultural waste. Other than controlled burning of biomass, it can be subjected for different purposes like a thermal, synthesis of ethanol, engine running, and for fuel cell applications. An excessive amount of impurities like char, ash, tar, and particulate matter are making these syngas non-feasible for thermal or engine applications. To overcome the above-stated problem, a downdraft gasifier with cyclone separator and hybrid biomass filter was fabricated using locally available materials in the workshop of the Dept. of Farm Machinery and Power at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Uniform distribution of 2.54-5.08 cm 2 sizes of feedstock was used for gasification. Air was used as a gasifying agent. The reactor capacity was 0.19 m 3 . The values of performance parameters for wood waste and corncobs were recorded as fuel consumption rate (0.002195, 0.002323) kg-s -1 , the volume of gas produced (24.56, 26.33) m 3 , operating time (5480, 5164) s, cleaning unit efficiency (81.79, 79.9) % and gas yield (2.04, 2.19) m 3 -kg -1 .

Air heterogeneity in the drying chamber of the batch-type dryer is a major problem because uneven air distribution within the drying chamber reduces the product quality and dryer efficiency. To surmount this problem, a new dryer with central air distribution model has been designed and developed. This is the distinct design feature of the dryer, which ensure the uniformity in the moisture content of the final dried paddy grains. ANSYS-Fluent (Computational Fluid Dynamics [CFD]) was used to predict the flow behavior of the air with respect to pressure and velocity within the drying chamber by applying actual boundary conditions and standardk−εturbulence model. Pressure and velocity profiles in the drying chamber were determined using CFD to optimize the drying uniformity. An estimated value for velocity input was used and air distribution was found good. For the validation of simulation results several drying tests were performed at different dryer depths of 18, 36, 54 and 72 cm in the drying chamber. The drying results expressed as percentage moisture content reduction, along the length of the dryer and measured the uniformity in the drying rate. The drying curves for each depth showed highR2value. Numerical simulation and experimental results showed that the newly developed solar-assisted paddy dryer is capable to produce uniform air distribution throughout the length of the drying chamber in the dryer for uniform and quality drying. This approach improved the overall performance of the solar-assisted paddy dryer.