Investigation of Non-thermal Plasma Assisted Combustion of Solid Biomass Fuels: Effects on Flue Gas Composition and Effi
- PDF / 1,533,097 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 27 Downloads / 190 Views
Investigation of Non‑thermal Plasma Assisted Combustion of Solid Biomass Fuels: Effects on Flue Gas Composition and Efficiency Mooktzeng Lim1 · Amanda R. Lea‑Langton2 Received: 11 March 2020 / Accepted: 30 July 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Interest in biomass is increasing due to the environmental benefits compared to fossil fuels. This study investigates a non-thermal plasma (NTP) device that has the potential to reduce dry flue gas loss (DFGL) from biomass combustion. DFGL is an efficiency loss in combustion processes, caused by unutilized heated excess air in the flue gas. Reducing DFGL is complicated by a narrow range of optimum operating conditions for combustion of biomass. In this study, a NTP reactor is integrated with a 150 kWth furnace to investigate the effects of the NTP-generated ozone (produced via high voltages at resonant frequency) on the combustion of biomass and coal. The ozonolysis of the volatile organic compounds (VOC) is also simulated with thermodynamic equilibrium models using FactSage 7.2. The DFGL is determined from the corresponding flue gas compositions. For biomass combustion, increasing NTP intensity from 50 to 224 W decreases the DFGL by 0.2–1.0%. For coal combustion, DFGL increases by 4.6–6.3% with increasing NTP intensity. Simulation results show that with an increase in ozone (10–20 g), the ozonolysis of alkanes and aromatics (0.2 kg respectively) results in a constant or increase in CO2 content by 0.0003%, a reduction in the residual O2 content by 0.002%, consequently decreasing DFGL. Ozonolysis of alkenes increases DFGL as the C O2 content decreases by 0.002% as the amount of ozone increases. The experimental and simulation results indicate that the VOC emitted from the coal in this study is likely to be composed of more alkenes than alkanes. Keywords Non-thermal plasma · Combustion · Efficiency · Ozonolysis · Volatile organic compounds
* Mooktzeng Lim [email protected] 1
Biomass and Plasma Technologies, Renewable Energy and Green Technology, TNB Research Sdn. Bhd, Research Institution Area, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing
Introduction Solid fuels such as biomass have variable chemical properties causing inefficiencies which are difficult to manage. Typical boiler efficiencies range from 75 to 86% due to inefficiencies such as dry flue gas losses, which is in the form of unutilized excess air that is heated up for combustion. Improvement of boiler and combustion efficiencies is needed to enable the greater use as biomass as a renewable source of fuel, which have potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the resultant impacts on the climate. Regardless of the fuel type, the optimization of the combustion efficiency is usually achieved by variation of the air–fuel ratio (AF) to reduce losses in efficiency in the fo
Data Loading...
