Pyrolysis and combustion of oil palm stone and palm kernel cake in fixed-bed reactors

The main objective of this research was to investigate the main characteristics of the thermo-chemical conversion of oil palm stone (OPS) and palm kernel cake (PKC). A series of combustion and pyrolysis tests were carried out in two fixed-bed reactors. The effects of heating rate at the temperature of 700 degrees C on the yields and properties of the pyrolysis products were investigated. The results from the combustion experiments showed that the burning rates increased with an increase in the air flow rate. In addition, the FLIC code was used to simulate the combustion of the oil palm stone to investigate the effect of primary air flow on the combustion process. The FLIC modelling results were in good agreement with the experimental data in terms of predicting the temperature profiles along the bed height and the composition of the flue gases.

Tar reduction in pyrolysis vapours from biomass over a hot char bed

The behaviour of pyrolysis vapours over char was investigated in order to maximise tar conversion for the development of a new fixed bed gasifier. Wood samples were decomposed at a typical pyrolysis temperature (500 degrees C) and the pyrolysis vapours were then passed directly through a tar cracking zone in a tubular reactor. The product yields and properties of the condensable phases and non-condensable gases were studied for different bed lengths of char (0-450 mm), temperatures (500-800 degrees C), particle sizes (10 and 15 mm) and nitrogen purge rates (1.84-14.70 mm/s). The carbon in the condensable phases showed about 66% reduction by a 300 mm long char section at 800 degrees C, compared to that for pyrolysis at 500 degrees C. The amount of heavy condensable phase decreased with increasing temperature from about 18.4 wt% of the biomass input at 500 degrees C to 8.0 wt% at 800 degrees C, forming CO, H(2) and other light molecules. The main mode of tar conversion was found to be in the vapour phase when compared to the results without the presence of char. The composition of the heavy condensable phase was simplified into much fewer secondary and tertiary tar components at 800 degrees C. Additional measures were required to maximise the heterogeneous effect of char for tar reduction.

On-line detection of metal pollutant spikes in MSW incinerator flue gases prior to clean-up

SUWIC's unique mobile metals emissions monitoring laboratory has been used to measure metal pollutant spikes in the flue gas from a municipal solid waste incinerator, prior to gas clean-up. The laboratory has a heated sampling probe that extends into the plant, allowing the simultaneous on-line measurement of the concentrations of more than 30 metals by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). As little is known about temporal variation in metal concentrations, this capability is seen as a major advance. The graphs of continuous measurements show that the elemental loading is far from uniform, and that concentrations fluctuate far more than may have been conventionally expected. There are occasional significant spikes in the emission profiles for cadmium and mercury, which are believed to be due to specific items in the waste feed material. Continuous monitoring measurements are of significant value for those seeking to model metal behaviour in combustion and in pollution control devices.

Continuous measurement of metals in flue gas using ICP-OES

A system capable of continuously measuring a range of metallic elements in the effluent gas from incinerators and other similar industrial processes, and providing on-line results has been developed. With a state-of-the-art mobile laboratory measurements were taken from a UK municipal solid waste incinerator. The detection system used was an ICP-OES, with a modified torch to allow the introduction of flue gas directly into the plasma. Metals that were investigated were Ni, Hg, V, Al, Na, Ca, Cu, Sn, Pb, Sb, As, Cd and Tl, with limits of detection in the range 0.0004 mg m(-3) to 0.1 mg m(-3) being calculated. Emission measurements produced data that showed that the MSWI plants emission were significantly lower than the emission limits specified in EC 2000/76/EC.

Mathematical modelling of MSW incineration on a travelling bed

The rising popularity of incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW) calls for detailed mathematical modelling and understanding of the incineration process. In this paper, governing equations for mass, momentum and heat transfer for both solid and gaseous phases in a moving bed in a solid-waste incineration furnace are described and relevant sub-models are presented. The burning rates of volatile hydrocarbons in the moving bed of solids are limited not only by the reaction kinetics but also the mixing of the volatile fuels with the under-fire air. The mixing rate is averaged across a computation cell and correlated to a number of parameters including local void fraction of the bed, gas velocity and a length scale comparable to the particle size in the bed. A correlation equation is also included to calculate the mixing in the freeboard area immediately next to the bed surface. A small-scale fixed bed waste incinerator was built and test runs were made in which total mass loss from the bed, temperature and gas composition at different locations along the bed height were measured. A 2-D bed-modelling program (FLIC) was developed which incorporates the various sub-process models and solves the governing equations for both gases and solids. Thermal and chemical processes are mainly confined within a layer about 5-9 times in thickness of the averaged particle size in the burning bed. For a large part of the burning process, the total mass loss rate was constant until the solid waste was totally dried out and a period of highly rising CO emission followed. The maximum bed temperature was around 1200 K. The whole burning process ended within 60 min. Big fluctuations in species concentration were observed due to channelling and subsequent 'catastrophic' changes in the local bed conditions. Reasonably good agreement between modelling and measurements has been achieved. Yet the modelling work is complicated by the channelling phenomenon in the bed. Numerical simulations without consideration of the channelling effect produced very good agreement with experiments concerning the total mass loss, but significant discrepancy exists for temperature and gas composition profiles. Transient phenomena such as the breaking of waste particles and the "catastrophic" creation of new burning channels occurring during waste incineration is a vital area requiring further investigation at the fundamental level. The underlying theory of bed behaviour must be extended to include these transient events.

Experimental investigation into the incineration of wool scouring sludges in a novel rotating fluidised bed

The main purpose of this research was to investigate the possibility of incineration of wool scouring sludges in a novel vertical axis rotating fluidized bed (RFB). A small-scale RFB was designed and constructed with an internal diameter (ID) of 200 mm and height of 50 mm to carry out the experiments. In phase one of the experiments, a cold test was conducted to investigate the fluidization performance of the RFB, which eventually led to the optimisation of the operating parameters, i.e., sand particle size, rotation speed and bed loading (bed thickness) which ensures complete fluidization and minimum particle elutriation. Sand particle size of 0.5 to 0.6 mm, rotation speed of 200 to 400 rpm and bed loading of 1 kg (equivalent to bed thickness of 27 mm) were found optimal. These information generated were useful for the second phase of the experiments, which was the hot test, in investigating the possibility of incinerating wool scouring sludges in the RFB. Nine wool sludges from different process routes generated from the wool scouring industries were analysed for their compositions. Most of these sludges were highly moist, had high volatile matter and high ash content with low level of fixed carbon. These characteristics made incineration difficult. Hence, the effect of varying the moisture content, rotation speed and sludge feed rate on the incineration of the three selected sludges were studied in the hot test. With 5% support methane, all sludges with a maximum moisture up to 70% as-received could be successfully burned in the RFB at rotating speeds of 200 and 300 rpm. The combustion was found to be intense with a high efficiency due to the good turbulence and mixing in the RFB. The combustion gases produced, i.e., CO, CO(2) and NO(x) were reasonably low due to the high combustion intensity and efficiency. To study the dynamics of the bed and freeboard region in the RFB, the velocity flow field was simulated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to generate information of the flow pattern. The special advantages of swirling flow would benefit the gas combustion in the RFB. The experimental results obtained have suggested that the incineration was successful and the ash particles elutriated were fine due to the good mixing and turbulence in the RFB. This also reflects the RFB as an effective incinerator.