Preventing circulating fluidised bed agglomeration and deposition during biomass combustion

Abstract

Abstract According to a fuel flexibility, fluidized bed boilers are considered as appropriate for biomass combustion as cofiring. But the burning of fuels such as forest and agricultural biomass raises a number of operational problems. Most important of these problems are bed agglomeration and deposition. Deposition appears when biomass contains significant amounts of alkali elements, such as sodium and potassium. The purpose of the work is to select a fuel additive to overcome these operational problems. Investigations were conducted in two stages at a pilot scale 0.1 MWth laboratory circulating fluidized bed reactor. As the fuel, the mixture of biomass contained forest residues, sunflower husks, straw and wood pellets from mixed woods was selected. In the first stage biomass was burnt without any additives, while in the second one the fuel was enriched with some additive. The additive (liquid mixture of chemicals) was added to the fuel in amounts of 1 dm3 per 5-10 Mg of fuel. The following operational parameters were examined: temperature profiles along the height of the circulating fluidised bed column, pressure profiles, emissions. After the tests, the laboratory reactor was inspected inside. Its results enables expression of the following conclusions: there was no agglomeration during fuel additive testing, and the deposition was reduced as well. Moreover, the parts (heating surfaces, separator) of the laboratory reactor were coated with a protective layer. The layer covered microcracks and protected the parts from deposition for a long period after the operation.