Interactions of potassium vapor with reactor tubes made of different materials and their impacts on particulate matter emission during pulverized biomass combustion

Abstract

During the combustion of biomass in drop-tube furnace (DTF) systems, the released alkali metal (e.g., potassium, K) inevitably reacts with reactor tube at high temperatures, affecting the experimental results on the emission of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters of <10 μm (PM10). This study reports the interactions between K vapor and tube reactors made of silicon carbide, corundum, and mullite and their impacts on PM10 emission. Demineralized wood samples loaded with potassium chloride (KCl) or ion-exchanged K respectively were combusted in a DTF at 1300 °C under air or oxy-fuel atmosphere. Another series of experiments was conducted to collect and analyze the PM10 from the combustion of KCl-loaded wood, K-exchanged wood, and two typical biomass samples (cotton stalk and wheat straw) in the three reactor tubes under air atmosphere. Experimental results show that 4.1‒72.5% of K is retained in the three tubes when burning the KCl-loaded wood in air, and the combustion in oxy-fuel atmosphere slightly increases the K retention. For K-exchanged wood combustion in air, only 3.7‒23.6% of K is released from the reactor tubes. In all conditions, the reactivity of the reactor tubes with K vapor follows a sequence of mullite > corundum > silicon carbide. The retained K is unstable, 49.0‒64.8% of which can be re-released during polyvinyl chloride combustion. In addition, the results demonstrate that, compared with silicon carbide tube, the use of corundum and mullite tubes leads to a 16.2‒54.3% decrease in PM1 yields and a significant drop in fine mode peaks in PM10 during the combustion of biomass samples in air, while the PM1–10 yields and the coarse mode peaks remain largely unchanged. These are attributed to the enhanced retentions of alkali metals in corundum and mullite tubes, which reduce the yields of Na, K, and Cl in PM10, but has negligible effect on those of refractory elements such as Mg and Ca.