Biomass has been regarded as a major form of renewable energy due to its neutral position in the emission of green house gases such as carbon dioxide. Rice husk and bamboo were the selected biomass fuels in this study due to their abundance in the Asia-Pacific regime. This study is also the first one that looked into co-combustion of coal with rice husk and bamboo in a comprehensive perspective regarding the combustion characteristics. Combustion performance and pollutant emission characteristics in a bench-scale pulverized fuel combustion reactor were evaluated. Experimental parameters including biomass blending ratio in the fuel mixture, biomass grinding size, excess air ratio and relative moisture content in the biomass were investigated. Apart from gaseous pollutants, information on...[ Read more ]

Biomass has been regarded as a major form of renewable energy due to its neutral position in the emission of green house gases such as carbon dioxide. Rice husk and bamboo were the selected biomass fuels in this study due to their abundance in the Asia-Pacific regime. This study is also the first one that looked into co-combustion of coal with rice husk and bamboo in a comprehensive perspective regarding the combustion characteristics. Combustion performance and pollutant emission characteristics in a bench-scale pulverized fuel combustion reactor were evaluated. Experimental parameters including biomass blending ratio in the fuel mixture, biomass grinding size, excess air ratio and relative moisture content in the biomass were investigated. Apart from gaseous pollutants, information on particle emission was also collected. Due to the decrease in heating value of adding biomass in the fuel mixture, combustion temperature and energy output from the co-firing process were reduced compared to coal combustion alone. On the other hand, gaseous pollutant emissions including Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), Nitrogen Oxides (NO_x) and Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) were reduced substantially with the increase of biomass blending ratio. In addition, Particulate Matters in the forms of PM₁₀ and PM_2.1 as well as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentration in the fly ash were also reduced. Biomass fuels also seemed to have the effect of moving the fly ash to a larger size range. A combination of biomass fuel and coal enables a good balance between energy output and minimization of pollutant generation. Trace heavy metal concentrations in rice husk and bamboo were also low leading to lower emission of heavy metals to the environment if biomass was burnt together with coal.