Physical and chemical characteristics of flue-gas particles in a large pulverized fuel-fired power plant boiler during co-combustion of coal and wood pellets

Fanni Mylläri, Panu Karjalainen, Raili Taipale, Pami Aalto, Anna Häyrinen, Jani Rautiainen, Liisa Pirjola, Risto Hillamo, Jorma Keskinen, Topi Rönkkö (Corresponding Author)

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    42 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Fossil fuel combustion should be decreased in future years in order to lower the CO2 emissions of energy production. The reduction can be achieved by increasing the amount of CO2-neutral fuels in energy production. Here 6-13% of coal was substituted with industrial or roasted pellets in a pulverized fuel-fired power plant without making any changes to fuel grinding or low-NOx burners. The effect of pellet addition for the flue gas particles was studied with direct sampling from the boiler super heater area. Based on primary dilution ratio tests, transmission electron microscope images, and the natural electric charge of the particles, it was observed that particles in the flue gas are spherical and have been formed in the boiler at high temperatures. The pellet addition lowered the total particle number concentrations with all of the studied pellet-coal mixtures in comparison to the coal combustion. The 10.5% industrial pellet addition caused a second mode in the particle number size distribution. In addition, based on the chemical analysis of the collected size-fractioned particle samples, results indicated that the pellet addition did not increase the corrosion risk of the boiler. However, the changes in the particle number size distribution and total particle number concentration can affect the operation of electrostatic precipitators and flue gas cleaning.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)554-566
    JournalCombustion and Flame
    Volume176
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Keywords

    • biomass combustion
    • high temperature aerosol
    • total particle number concentration
    • particle number size distribution
    • pulverized fuel
    • coal

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