Combustion and mass loss behavior and characteristics of a single biomass pellet positioning at different orientations in a fixed bed reactor

Abstract

Abstract This study aims to investigate the combustion characteristics and mass loss behaviors of rice straw and wheat straw biomass pellets experimentally in a laboratory fixed bed combustor under various operating conditions. High-speed photography was used to record images of the combustion process, and a sensitive balance was utilized for recording the particle mass history during the combustion process in addition to K-type thermocouples for temperature measurements. For both materials, the single pellet was exposed to various air temperatures and different flow rates of air. The orientation of the biomass pellet was positioned at various angles from 0 (horizontal), 30°, 45°, 60° (inclined), and 90° (parallel) to the hot air stream at different flow rates. Both glowing reactions and flameless ignition have been noticed in all experiments at all pellet orientations. All pellets experienced low and high luminosity volatiles without flames, followed by a bright radish color and short-lived combustion of the chars. Although the volatile contents of the two materials are identical, the volatile combustion duration of wheat straw (17–258 s) is less than that of rice straw (20–300 s), which could be due to differences in particle sizes, shapes, and structural compositions. The results also show that increased air temperatures lessen the time it takes for volatile and char to ignite and burn off. It also raises the temperature of surface ignition. Starting from the horizontal position and increasing the orientation angle of the pellet, the volatile and char ignition times increase up to 30° and then drop up to 90°, with angle 45° giving the lowest value. The same pattern was also noticed for volatile and char burnout times. The pellet horizontal position (0°) exhibits reduced combustion and mass loss (%) time intervals. The order of increasing the maximum temperature at the pellet surface was 30° > 60° > 90° angles. Increasing the air temperature reduces the times of char combustion, devolatilization, volatile burnout, and char burnout. As the air flow rate increases, the effect on the combustion parameters alternates between increasing and decreasing values.