Analysis on combustion process of multiple biomass types and mixing with coal

based on numerical and experimental studies

Songying Zhao a,*, Dongdong Wang a , Jianguang Xu a , Heng li a, Lei Chen a, Hongren

Fan b

a School of Municipal And Environmental Engineering, Jilin Jianzhu University，

Changchun, 130118, China

b Yanbian Pinzhong Engineering Technology Co.，LTD.，Yanji 133001, China

*Corresponding author E-mail address: zhaosongying1980@sina.com

Abstract: The combustion process and pollutant emission involved in pulverized coal,

four types of biomass and their composite fuels were studied. Gas mass fraction on five

fuels was also numerically investigated. Results showed that pulverized coal presented

good burning performance compared with biomass, with over 600K in temperature gap.

Better uniformity of biomass temperature distribution occurred. Combustion effect was

improved than that of 100% biomass after the adding of 70% biomass. The CO2 mass

fraction of five fuels exhibited a opposite variation with O2 mass fraction. NOx content

released by pulverized coal was as high as 1.8%, whereas that generated by biomass

presented a negligible impact. NOx and SO2 emission of the composite fuel composed

of 70% biomass + 30% coal significantly declined than those of corresponding

theoretical value and pulverized coal combustion. Synergistic effect existed during the

biomass/pulverized coal mixed combustion process.

Keywords: Combustion process; Composite fuel; Mixing ratio; Synergistic effect

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1. Introduction

Continuous supply of fossil fuels has provided energy security for the rapid

urbanization in China over the past few decades. However, the consequent energy crisis

and global warming urge people to find potential alternatives to alleviate the reliance on

fossil fuels. Unlike other alternatives, the basic advantage of biomass is the production

within the photosynthesis process where carbohydrates are obtained from CO2 and H2O

through solar radiation(Wilk et al., 2017). In this way, the emission of CO2 during

combustion is equal to the amount needed for biomass generation, which makes

biomass a carbon neutral fuel owing to the almost zero emissions of carbon dioxide.

Additionally, biomass has distinct advantages due to its easy availability and wide

distribution(Yang et al., 2020). In 2020, the annual production of biomass in China

constitutes approximately 1 billion tons, and it's increasing at a rate of 10 percent, which

has great potential for application. Meanwhile, in addition to a small amount of biomass

used in rural household fuel or feed, the majority of biomass was incinerated in the open

or treated by burying in landfilling, or randomly discarded in the field for

biodegradation causing stress and pollution to ecosystem.

As the increasing demand to energy, biomass combustion in particular has received

extensive attention from many researchers. Kaolin was adopted as additive to address

ash problems during oxy-biomass combustion in circulating fluidized bed facility

(Hoang et al., 2021), and found that SO2 exhibited a decrease in emission due to the

addition of kaolin. Co-combustion of pine sawdust with lignite coal using artificial

neural networks(ANN) and Monte Carlo simulation was researched(Musa Buyukada,

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2019). It was found that Monte Carlo simulation is feasible to identify the stochastic

variability and uncertainty associated with ANN models. The investigation was

presented on combustion behavior of anthracite, biomass char and their blends using

thermogravimetry analysis(Tong et al., 2019), and both initial temperature and final

temperature of fuels were lowered with the additive carbon.

Torrefaction is a mild thermal treatment process, and the biomass-related

torrefaction studies have also been reported in the literature. The influence of biomass

torrefaction and corresponding blend co-combustion with coal was experimentally

studied (Yang et al., 2021). They revealed the distinctions on biomass performance and

mechanisms between migration and transformation of nitrogen during the entire thermal

treatments. A another study, performed by Wang et al.(2021) investigated the effects of

air oxidative and non-oxidative torrefaction for corn stalk in detail. It was found that the

addition of organic extractives reduced the deoxidation efficiency of structural

components. Zhang et al.(2021) conducted experiments on the thermal decomposition

behavior and S release characteristics during torrefaction and pyrolysis process. Study

indicated that torrefaction pretreatment effectively inhibited the release of S into the gas

phase, and promoted the retention of more S in the carbon.

As the increasing accuracy of numerical software, the field of numerical simulation

largely contributes to the biomass combustion. A single particle fusion combustion

model was proposed based on the effect of ash fusion (Xu et al., 2018). The results

showed that the model improved the accuracy of prediction results. Mario et al. (2016)

numerically investigated the hybrid filtration combustion waves in a porous media for

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biomass and methane-air mixtures. It was concluded that the numerical predictions

results of temperatures and chemical products are basically consistent with experimental

data for some biomass contrasted. The burning behavior of biomass in the industrial-

scale grate boiler via numerical simulation was studied (Zhou et al., 2019), and

introduced a dynamic one-dimensional model to simulate the biomass combustion in the

grate bed. It was found that the maximum combustion temperature raised and the

burning time shortened with the increase in air supply.

Nevertheless, in previous biomass studies, investigations on the combustion

process of biomass and pulverized coal composite fuel are few. In comparison with coal,

biomass exhibits advantages in less N and S content as well as wide sources. Therefore,

focusing on the specific types of biomass in China, this study proposed a combustion

method of “ Corn straw, cotton straw, wood chips of pinus koraiensis and rice straw

were mixed with pulverized coal in certain mass proportion”. Simultaneously, Section 2

mainly introduces the materials employed under study, and the basic component

determination coupled with research methods, after which analyses on temperature

distribution and gas mass fraction and pollutant emission are presents in Section 3.

Finally, Section 4 concludes this work.

2.Materials and methods

2.1 Materials

Five samples used in this study were collected from different places. Among these

samples, three belong to gramineae plants covering corn straw,cotton straw and rice

straw. In addition, one sample was wood chips of pinus koraiensis, which can be

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categorized as a lignocellulosic biomass, the other was coal. The information on sample

collections was presented in Table 1. Prior to the sample preparation, four types of

biomass and coal were air-dried firstly, and subsequently chopped by electric gear

cutting machine. After that, from the perspective of ensuring uniformity, the samples

were milled to powder using an agate mortar, and sieved to the particle size less than

0.5mm through a mesh sieve, and finally was placed in a drying oven to dry at 105 ℃

for 24 hours and stored in a desiccator for later use.

Table 1 Information on sample collection

Samples Collection dates Collection sites

pulverized coal 2021.5 Harbin, Heilongjiang province
corn straw 2021.5 Changchun, Jilin Province
cotton straw 2021.5 Wuhan, Hubei Province
wood chips of pinus 2021.5 Changchun, Jilin Province
koraiensis
rice straw 2021.5 Changchun, Jilin Province

2.2 Proximate and ultimate analysis

The proximate analysis of materials was conducted in accordance with the Chinese

national norm of GB/T 212-2008 (Ren et al.,2017). In terms of elemental analysis, the

determination of C, H and N was performed according to GB/T 30733-2014, and the

determination of S was performed according to GB/T 214-2007. Furthermore, the

determination of thermal value was carried out based on GB/T 213-2008.

Corresponding industrial and elemental analyses of five samples are shown in Table 2.

And the data exhibited were mainly obtained using YX-GYFX fully automatic

industrial analyzer and EURO EA elemental analyzer, as well as YX-ZR 9704

automatic calorimeter, all of which were manufactured in China.

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 Table 2 Proximate and ultimate analysis

Proximate analysis (%) Ultimate analysis (%) Thermal

Sample value(M
Md Ad Vd FCd Cd Hd Od Nd Sd
J/kg)
pulverized
1.63 20.12 30.54 46.51 59.86 2.71 11.35 1.25 0.45 30.15
coal
corn straw 4.79 7.35 71.39 15.87 42.50 6.32 47.93 0.52 0.16 17.36
cotton
7.85 13.01 65.10 12.96 37.83 5.75 41.34 0.37 0.19 15.54
straw
wood
chips of
9.01 5.88 63.27 11.24 36.28 5.33 37.78 0.08 0.02 14.38
pinus
koraiensis
rice straw 10.56 9.69 62.73 10.52 35.79 5.51 33.56 0.30 0.12 12.87

Proximate analysis mainly includes moisture, ash and volatile matter as well as

fixed carbon. The moisture content of 5 samples ranges from 1.63% to 10.56% , among

which the moisture of rice straw ranks at the top and pulverized coal at the bottom. The

ash content of pulverized coal is as high as 20.12%. By contrast, the ash content of four

types of biomass was 7.35%, 13.01%，5.88% and 9.69%, which are considerably lower

than that of pulverized coal. It can be seen that volatile matter content in biomass is

generally at a high level as compared to coal, up to 60%-70%, whereas the fixed carbon

contents of biomass are significantly lower than pulverized coal. On the other hand, the

mass fraction of nitrogen and sulfur element in pulverized coal is relatively higher,

accounting for 1.25% and 0.45%, respectively. Contrary to pulverized coal, those in

biomass exhibits little difference. Based on the comparison of N and S content, four

types of biomass are more cleaner and environmental friendly to ecosystem than coal.

The low thermal value of coal is also significantly higher than that of biomass.

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2.3 Numerical method

2.3.1Combustion model

The feasible 2-D Eulerian-Eulerian physical model was firstly developed (Couto et

al.,2015; Silva et al., 2014). Complex phenomena regarding the biomass combustion

process in reactor can be simulated by means of a multiphase (gas and solid) model

using FLUENT commercial software. Gasification biomass boiler can be simplified a 2-

dimensional combustion chamber(CC) with 1 meter inside diameter and 10 meters in

length, where the combustion simulation of 5 fuels was conducted, respectively. As

shown in Fig.1, half of the area in width direction was simulated due to the symmetrical

distribution of CC. In addition, combustion chamber entrance was composed of two

different inlets, where the primary air inlet was adjacent to the central position.

Moreover, the size of both air inlets in width was 0.125 m and 0.375 m, respectively.

Fig. 1. Simplified 2-D model of combustion chamber

2.3.2 Parameters setting

Parameters setting on numerical simulation are summarized in Table 3. Both

primary and secondary air inlet sections of combustion chamber were seen as the inlet

boundary of computational domain, and consequently were set as the velocity inlets.

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Similarly, the section where outlet located can be viewed as pressure outlet boundary

for the calculation area. And assumptions were made that wall surface was adiabatic and

remained constant temperature.

Table 3 Parameters setting

Parameter Value Unit

Primary air velocity 20 m/s
Secondary air velocity 10 m/s
Air temperature 1500 K
Wall temperature 1200 K
Outlet temperature 2000 K
Mass flow rate of fuel 0.2 kg/s

The co-combustion of pulverized coal and biomass particles in combustion

chamber refers to a complex physical and chemical phenomenon, involving disciplines

that cover multiphase flow, heat and mass transfer, coupled with combustion. In this

study, the air flow in combustion chamber was calculated in steady state and gravity

was also taken into account. The models chosen for simulation were given as follows

and they showed good calculation results. The standard k-ε turbulence model was used

to calculate the gas-phase turbulent transport, and the flow of fuel particles was

simulated through DPM model. Meanwhile, radiative heat transfer process was

performed by applying P1 radiation model, and Eddy-Dissipation model was employed

for combustion model.

2.4 Experimental method

2.4.1Experimental apparatus

Combustion experiments were conducted in gasification biomass boiler, and it was

composed of two parts that include gasification chamber and combustion reduction

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chamber. After the gasification of fuel in gasification chamber, combustible gas was

accompanied by the high temperature flame from gasification chamber entering the

reduction chamber for full mixed combustion. The fuel was fed by the front hydraulic

feeding system. Open the furnace firstly to keep operation, and when it was heated from

indoor temperature to approximately 1200℃ at a heating rate of 30 °C/min, fuels were

slowly fed into the gasification chamber by the hydraulic feeding mechanism. The fuel

was rapidly cracked and gasified at high temperature, accompanied by partial

combustion. Part of the high temperature generated by gasification combustion was

used as function of maintaining the high temperature in gasification chamber, in order

to ensure the continuous operation of pyrolysis gasification combustion reaction. And

the combustible gas that has been not completely burned after gasification entered the

combustion reduction chamber for full combustion again.

Portable DX4000 Fourier infrared flue gas analyzer manufactured in Finland was

applied to detect the pollutant emission due to its multiple analysis ranges. During

monitoring process, the flow rate of sampling system was set as 2 L/min, and each test

lasted for approximately 5 min.

2.4.2 Experimental condition

The experiments were conducted in two segments. On the one hand, combustion

experiments for five kinds of fuels were carried out separately. On the other hand, it was

necessary to study the influence of biomass and pulverized coal composite fuel. Table 4

lists the experimental parameters for mixed combustion, and they are assigned to

investigate the impact of mass mixing ratio on combustion performance. Prior to

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experiment, four types of biomass including corn straw, cotton straw, wood chips of

pinus koraiensis and rice straw were uniformly mixed with pulverized coal in a mass

mixing proportion of 70%. And the feed rate of fuel was controlled at 90 ± 0.1kg to

alleviate the deviation during combustion.

Table 4 Experimental conditions of mixed combustion

Biomass type Fuel feed rate Mass mixing ratio Combustion

(kg/h) (%) mode
corn straw 90 70 + 30 co-combustion
cotton straw 90 70 + 30 co-combustion
wood chips of
90 70 + 30 co-combustion
pinus koraiensis
rice straw 90 70 + 30 co-combustion

3.Results and discussion

3.1Analysis of temperature distribution

Fig.2 shows the temperature distribution of five fuels on the central section in

combustion chamber that includes pulverized coal, corn straw, cotton straw, pinus

koraiensis and rice straw in sequence. It can be seen from simulation results that the

maximum temperature on the central section are 2620K, 2010K, 1910K, 1880K and

1830K, respectively during combustion. As shown in Table 2, the thermal value in

biomass is considerably lower than that of coal. And the maximum temperature on the

central section in combustion chamber for biomass is above 600K lower than that of

pulverized coal under the same quality, thus resulting in the poor combustion

performance and heat efficiency. Compared with pulverized coal combustion, the

position where ignition point located for biomass particles is relatively earlier,

indicating that these biomasses are easy to ignite due to high volatile matter content,

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which can be used as good combustion-supporting agent. Moreover, biomass presented

the expanded high temperature area, as well as more uniform temperature distribution in

combustion chamber. Therefore, it can be inferred that if biomass particle is mixed with

coal in certain proportion, the possibility of better combustion effect is expected to be

achieved.

Fig. 2. Temperature distribution of five fuels on the central section in combustion

chamber (Unit: K)

Comparison of the maximum temperature between experimental and simulated

values was given in Fig.3. According to comparison results, the maximum temperature

in combustion chamber presented higher simulated value than experimental value, since

numerical simulation was conducted in the most ideal state of combustion, coupled with

the limits of experimental condition that actual combustion process was subjected to

aspects such as errors from experimental equipment and human factor. As shown in

Fig.3, the relative error of pulverized coal is approaching 19.7%, whereas that of four

types of biomass is approximately 17%. The commonality for five fuels is that the

relative error on maximum temperature between experimental value and simulated

value is within 20%, which reveals that simulation results agree well with experimental

datas.

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Fig.3. Comparison of maximum temperature between experimental values and

simulated values

Fig.4 presents the temperature curve on the central section in combustion chamber

as the position changes. It can be seen that the temperature of five fuels shown a decline

in the range of 0 - 2 m, but is all above 1350 K due to the higher primary air

temperature. The temperature rises rapidly between 2-6 m, where the temperature

variation rate of pulverized coal was significantly higher than biomass fuels. The

primary cause is due to the lower moisture content as well as high fixed carbon content

in coal among five fuels, thus leading to efficient combustion effect and higher

temperature. After full combustion of fuel, the temperature on the central section

between 6 and 10 m remains basically stable. According to analysis, conclusion can be

drawn that the combustion effect of fuel is not only subjected to primary air

temperature, but also by own moisture content and fixed carbon content.

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Fig. 4. Temperature curve on the central section in combustion chamber as position

changes

Fig.5 gives the maximum temperature of composite fuels at different mixing ratios

during combustion. In terms of different types of mixed fuels, the temperature of

composite fuel presented successive decrease as the increase in biomass mixing ratio.

When 0% biomass is mixed, pulverized coal showed the maximum temperature due to

more fixed carbon content and high thermal value. In contrast, the lower temperature of

composite fuels was presented after the adding of 100% biomass. However, in

comparison with 100% biomass, the maximum temperature was promoted through the

mixing of 70% biomass + 30% pulverized coal. Taking corn straw as an example, the

temperature at 70% mixing ratio was considerably higher than that at 100% and has a

temperature gap at approximately 230K. Good burning effect coupled with noticeable

synergistic effect existed for the biomass and pulverized coal composite fuel, leading to

the improved combustion process.

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 Fig. 5. Maximum temperature of composite fuel during combustion

3.2 Distribution of gas mass fraction

3.2.1 Effect of combustor position on CO2 mass fraction

It can be seen from Fig.6 that CO2 is mainly distributed in the main combustion

area in combustion chamber. During the whole combustion process, CO2 mass fraction

presented a trend of increasing at first and then stabilizing. And the CO2 mass fraction

produced by pulverized coal presents maximum content at approximately 13%, while

that generated by biomass particles accounts for more than 5%. The CO2 mass fraction

of corn straw among four types of biomass is relatively high due to its advantage in

fixed carbon content. Compared with Fig.4, it can be revealed the change of CO2 mass

fraction during the combustion of five fuels is basically consistent with corresponding

change trend of temperature.

3.2.2 Effect of combustor position on O2 mass fraction

Variation curves on O2 mass fraction with the position changing in combustion

chamber were shown in Fig.7. Unlike CO2, since a large amount of O2 was consumed in

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the main combustion zone, thus, O2 mass fraction showed a opposite trend, and the

oxygen consumption for five fuels approximately ranges from 77% to 90%. Meanwhile,

O2 consumption employed by four types of biomass accounted for lower proportions

than coal, which was mainly relevant to the lower temperature produced during burning

process. After the comparison with Fig.4, it suggested that the amount of O2 consumed

by fuels was positively correlated with the temperature generated.

3.2.3 Effect of combustor position on NOx mass fraction

Fig.8 presents the distribution of NOX mass fraction as position changes in

combustion chamber. The NOX content of coal across the main combustion zone is

slightly high with the maximum value at approximately 1.8%, whereas that generated

by four kinds of biomass particles is close to zero owing to the less nitrogen content in

biomass. Simultaneously, biomass has high volatile content and are easy to burn at

relatively low temperature, thus forming a reductive atmosphere at the whole

combustion stage, and it is conducive to the reduction from NOx emissions. Therefore,

different biomasses are mixed with coal in a certain proportion, the NOx content in coal

probably can be reduced.

3.3 Analysis on pollutant emission

3.3.1 Effect of biomass mixing proportion on NOX emission

NOx emission during fuel combustion is composed of three categories that covers

thermal NOx, fuel NOx and fast NOx. Thermal NOx is formed by combining nitrogen

in air with oxidation at high temperature and tend to generate as the temperature is

above 1500 °C. And fuel NOx is formed by the combination of the chemical nitrogen in

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the fuel during the volatile precipitation into ionic state and high concentration oxygen.

Tube furnace was utilized to conduct experiment and the temperature was controlled

within 1300 °C. The emission of thermal NOx may not be taken into account based on

Arrhenius’s law, when the reaction temperature is less than 1300 °C (Wang et al., 2009;

Rong et al., 2017; Sartor et al., 2014). Therefore, the generation of thermal NOx is not

considered during composite fuel burning. Meanwhile, the influence of fast NOx can be

negligible due to its less content at approximately 5%. Under this circumstance, NOx

released by composite fuel can be largely viewd as fuel NOx in terms of mixed

combustion as a whole.

In order to perform comparison, the assumption that theoretical value on the mixed

fuel pollutant emission as a linear superposition of several types of biomass and

pulverized coal emission is made. According to mixing proportion, corresponding

calculation formula of composite fuel is defined as follows:

 Etheoretical  n  Ebiomass  (1  n)  Ecoal  (1)

where n is taken as 0.7. Etheoretical represents the theoretical emission value of the

composite fuel. The actual pollutant emission of biomass is given by Ebiomass. Ecoal is the

actual pollutant emission from pulverized coal.

Fig.9 gives the NOx emission at different composite fuels. NOx emission

generated by biomass is significantly lower than that produced by pulverized coal.

According to the ultimate analysis in Table 2, the N content from five fuels can be

ranked in sequence: pulverized coal (1.25%) > corn straw (0.52%) > cotton straw

(0.37%) > rice straw (0.30%) > wood chips of pinus koraiensis (0.08%). Meanwhile, the

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NOx emission from experimental result reveals that pulverized coal > corn straw >

cotton straw > rice straw > wood chips of pinus koraiensis. The NOx emission for five

fuels is positively correlated with its own N content. And the pulverized coal that

contains the highest nitrogen content also generates the maximum NOx emission.

As shown in Fig.9, in comparison with theoretical value, the NOx emission of

different types of composite fuels exhibits lower value after the addition of 70%

biomass to pulverized coal. Thereby, biomass can effectively inhibit the NOx emission

in pulverized coal, resulting in the phenomenon that good synergistic effect occurred

between biomass and pulverized coal.

3.3.2 Effect of biomass mass mixing proportion on SO2 emission

It can be seen from Table 2 that the S conten in pulverized coal is considerably

higher than those of four types of biomass. Hence, the SO2 emission of composite fuel is

closely relevant to pulverized coal mixing. The corresponding theoretically calculated

method keeps consistence with Formula (1). As shown in Fig.10, when different

biomasses are mixed with pulverized coal, SO2 content generated by mixed fuel

presents a apparent drop. In comparison with the theoretical value, SO2 discharged by

composite fuels exhibits relatively smaller value due to the mixing of 70% biomass +

30% pulverized coal.

In terms of burning and pollutant emission, the composite fuel of 70% biomass +

30% pulverized coal could improve the combustion process and effectively lower the

NOx and SO2 emission in pulverized coal. It can be employed as a comprehensively

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composite fuel for application, which contributes to decrease pollution and adverse

effects on ecosystem.

4. Conclusions

In comparison with four types of biomass, pulverized coal presented good burning

performance and heat efficiency, and with less uniformity regarding temperature

distribution. Four biomasses can be used as good combustion-supporting agent.

Combustion effect was improved after the adding of 70% biomass to pulverized coal.

The O2 mass fraction of five fuels showed a opposite variation with CO2 mass fraction.

Both NOx and SO2 emission of the composite fuel composed of 70% biomass + 30%

pulverized coal significantly decreased than pulverized coal combustion and the

theoretical value. Synergistic effect occurred during the mixed combustion process of

biomass and pulverized coal.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or

personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this

paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the financial support from National Natural

Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51878316) and Jilin Province Science and

Technology Development Plan (Grant No. 20190303022 SF).

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