Biomass Technical & Hardware Issues

Part of the problem associated with co-firing (biomass with coal)

is related to fuel preparation, storage, delivery, ash deposition, fly
ash utilisation, higher in-house power consumption, pollutant
formation, higher corrosion within high temperature components
and, in fluidised bed combustion, an increase in the number of bed
material changes (Mitchell R. E., et. al., 2004).

Some of the main issues related to the co-firing technical and

engineering field are listed below:

1. Degradation can be prevented by lengthening the storage

period for biomass materials, either by building storage
specifically for biomass materials (biomass silo) and/or adding
preservative agent to them during or after the grinding process

2. Biomass materials should be milled to a fine powder or pressed

and shaped into pellets or briquettes (whenever this is
possible) to help in reducing the space requirement for storage,
as well as for transportation purposes
3. Biomass fuel can be injected into the boiler only when the level
of moisture is reduced to a minimum. In this way, corrosion of
boilers can be reduced and energy efficiency can be kept at a
higher level.

4. By mixing different types of biomass material to create the

final single sample the high volatility can be reduced by simply
adding a small percentage of ash to the total volume of the new
sample.

5. This kind of blend not only lengthens the burning period but
also adds additional useful properties to the new product, plus
maintaining low market costs through the use of different biomass
materials

6. If a by-product, such as ash, is part of the economy of

production at the power station, then finding alternative ways in
the production of ash for cement would be required

7. The best way to achieve efficiency when using biomass

materials (e.g. during combustion) is to treat each different type
of material separately. In this way, the by-product and its effects
on the boiler would be reduced, as it is well known that by-
products produced from similar types of materials are much
simpler than those produced from mixed different types of
combusting materials (National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
2006). Following this method, biomass blending with coal, would
not be needed, and this in itself would reduce some of the cost for
the power generating company, especially as some of the
blending can be at sites remote from the power generating
companies (DTI 2007).

8. Avoiding and/or reducing chloride and alkali content in the

biomass materials used as fuel. This may help to reduce
corrosion, and create higher operational efficiency as well as
lengthen the life cycle of the hardware.
9. Increase in the level of submicron aerosols and fumes in the
flue gases (Arumugam S., 2004) may degrade the collective
efficiency

10. Increasing the co-firing ratio of biomass as well as increasing

the different variations of biomass materials, can in turn increase
the technical risk, and as a consequence, the cost of co-firing with
biomass also increases

11. If required, establishment of an international standard for

biomass fuels (in order to provide outlined acceptable boundaries
related to technical and non-technical issues)

Najib Altawell

References
Arumugam S. (2004) Nitrogen oxides emission control through
reburning with biomass in coal-fired power plants. Thesis, Texas A&M
University.

DTI (2007) Engineering report: Guidance document on biomass co-firing

on coal fired power stations, DTI Project 324-2

Mitchell R. E., Campbell P. A., Ma L., Sørum L. (2004) Characterization of

coal and biomass conversion behaviors in advanced energy systems.
Pages 202 – 209, GCEP Technical Report.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2006) Biomass Research, NREL,

USA

© Altawell 2010