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Title: CO-FIRING COAL, FEEDLOT, AND LITTER BIOMASS (CFB AND LFB) FUELS IN PULVERIZED FUEL AND FIXED BED BURNERS

Abstract

Intensive animal feeding operations create large amounts of animal waste that must be safely disposed of in order to avoid environmental degradation. Cattle feedlots and chicken houses are two examples. In feedlots, cattle are confined to small pens and fed a high calorie grain diet in preparation for slaughter. In chicken houses, thousands of chickens are kept in close proximity. In both of these operations, millions of tons of manure are produced every year. In this project a co-firing technology is proposed which would use manure that cannot be used for fertilizer, for power generation. Since the animal manure has economic uses as both a fertilizer and as a fuel, it is properly referred to as feedlot biomass (FB) for cow manure, or litter biomass (LB) for chicken manure. The biomass will be used a as a fuel by mixing it with coal in a 90:10 blend and firing it in existing coal fired combustion devices. This technique is known as co-firing, and the high temperatures produced by the coal will allow the biomass to be completely combusted. Therefore, it is the goal of the current research to develop an animal biomass cofiring technology. A cofiring technology is being developedmore » by performing: (1) studies on fundamental fuel characteristics, (2) small scale boiler burner experiments, (3) gasifier experiments, (4) computer simulations, and (5) an economic analysis. The fundamental fuel studies reveal that biomass is not as high a quality fuel as coal. The biomass fuels are higher in ash, higher in moisture, higher in nitrogen and sulfur (which can cause air pollution), and lower in heat content than coal. Additionally, experiments indicate that the biomass fuels have higher gas content, release gases more readily than coal, and less homogeneous. Small-scale boiler experiments revealed that the biomass blends can be successfully fired, and NO{sub x} pollutant emissions produced will be similar to or lower than pollutant emissions when firing coal. This is a surprising result as the levels of N are higher in the biomass fuel than in coal. Further experiments showed that biomass is twice or more effective than coal when used in a reburning process to reduce NO{sub x} emissions. Since crushing costs of biomass fuels may be prohibitive, stoker firing may be cost effective; in order simulate such a firing, future work will investigate the performance of a gasifier when fired with larger sized coal and biomass. It will be a fixed bed gasifier, and will evaluate blends, coal, and biomass. Computer simulations were performed using the PCGC-2 code supplied by BYU and modified by A&M with three mixture fractions for handling animal based biomass fuels in order to include an improved moisture model for handling wet fuels and phosphorus oxidation. Finally the results of the economic analysis show that considerable savings can be achieved with the use of biomass. In the case of higher ash and moisture biomass, the fuel cost savings will be reduced, due to increased transportation costs. A spreadsheet program was created to analyze the fuel savings for a variety of different moisture levels, ash levels, and power plant operating parameters.« less

Authors:
; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
US Department of Energy (US)
OSTI Identifier:
792063
Report Number(s):
FG26-00NT40810-04
TRN: US200205%%53
DOE Contract Number:  
FG26-00NT40810
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 15 Jan 2002
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT; 09 BIOMASS FUELS; BIOMASS; BURNERS; COAL; COCOMBUSTION; ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; PACKED BEDS; POWER GENERATION; POWER PLANTS; PULVERIZED FUELS

Citation Formats

Annamalai, Kalyan, Sweeten, John, Mukhtar, Saqib, Thien, Ben, Wei, Gengsheng, and Priyadarsan, Soyuz. CO-FIRING COAL, FEEDLOT, AND LITTER BIOMASS (CFB AND LFB) FUELS IN PULVERIZED FUEL AND FIXED BED BURNERS. United States: N. p., 2002. Web. doi:10.2172/792063.
Annamalai, Kalyan, Sweeten, John, Mukhtar, Saqib, Thien, Ben, Wei, Gengsheng, & Priyadarsan, Soyuz. CO-FIRING COAL, FEEDLOT, AND LITTER BIOMASS (CFB AND LFB) FUELS IN PULVERIZED FUEL AND FIXED BED BURNERS. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/792063
Annamalai, Kalyan, Sweeten, John, Mukhtar, Saqib, Thien, Ben, Wei, Gengsheng, and Priyadarsan, Soyuz. 2002. "CO-FIRING COAL, FEEDLOT, AND LITTER BIOMASS (CFB AND LFB) FUELS IN PULVERIZED FUEL AND FIXED BED BURNERS". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/792063. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/792063.
@article{osti_792063,
title = {CO-FIRING COAL, FEEDLOT, AND LITTER BIOMASS (CFB AND LFB) FUELS IN PULVERIZED FUEL AND FIXED BED BURNERS},
author = {Annamalai, Kalyan and Sweeten, John and Mukhtar, Saqib and Thien, Ben and Wei, Gengsheng and Priyadarsan, Soyuz},
abstractNote = {Intensive animal feeding operations create large amounts of animal waste that must be safely disposed of in order to avoid environmental degradation. Cattle feedlots and chicken houses are two examples. In feedlots, cattle are confined to small pens and fed a high calorie grain diet in preparation for slaughter. In chicken houses, thousands of chickens are kept in close proximity. In both of these operations, millions of tons of manure are produced every year. In this project a co-firing technology is proposed which would use manure that cannot be used for fertilizer, for power generation. Since the animal manure has economic uses as both a fertilizer and as a fuel, it is properly referred to as feedlot biomass (FB) for cow manure, or litter biomass (LB) for chicken manure. The biomass will be used a as a fuel by mixing it with coal in a 90:10 blend and firing it in existing coal fired combustion devices. This technique is known as co-firing, and the high temperatures produced by the coal will allow the biomass to be completely combusted. Therefore, it is the goal of the current research to develop an animal biomass cofiring technology. A cofiring technology is being developed by performing: (1) studies on fundamental fuel characteristics, (2) small scale boiler burner experiments, (3) gasifier experiments, (4) computer simulations, and (5) an economic analysis. The fundamental fuel studies reveal that biomass is not as high a quality fuel as coal. The biomass fuels are higher in ash, higher in moisture, higher in nitrogen and sulfur (which can cause air pollution), and lower in heat content than coal. Additionally, experiments indicate that the biomass fuels have higher gas content, release gases more readily than coal, and less homogeneous. Small-scale boiler experiments revealed that the biomass blends can be successfully fired, and NO{sub x} pollutant emissions produced will be similar to or lower than pollutant emissions when firing coal. This is a surprising result as the levels of N are higher in the biomass fuel than in coal. Further experiments showed that biomass is twice or more effective than coal when used in a reburning process to reduce NO{sub x} emissions. Since crushing costs of biomass fuels may be prohibitive, stoker firing may be cost effective; in order simulate such a firing, future work will investigate the performance of a gasifier when fired with larger sized coal and biomass. It will be a fixed bed gasifier, and will evaluate blends, coal, and biomass. Computer simulations were performed using the PCGC-2 code supplied by BYU and modified by A&M with three mixture fractions for handling animal based biomass fuels in order to include an improved moisture model for handling wet fuels and phosphorus oxidation. Finally the results of the economic analysis show that considerable savings can be achieved with the use of biomass. In the case of higher ash and moisture biomass, the fuel cost savings will be reduced, due to increased transportation costs. A spreadsheet program was created to analyze the fuel savings for a variety of different moisture levels, ash levels, and power plant operating parameters.},
doi = {10.2172/792063},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/792063}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2002},
month = {Tue Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2002}
}