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Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and

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Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody Biomass

Fuels
a b b c
J. Han , H. Kim , S. Cho & T. Shimizu
a
Hubei Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion and New Materials, Wuhan University of Science
and Technology, Wuhan, P.R. China
b
Department of Ecological Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Tempaku cho,
Toyohashi, Japan
c
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Niigata University, Ikarashi, Niigata,
Japan

Available online: 13 Oct 2008

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Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 30:19, 1820-1829

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 Energy Sources, Part A, 30:1820–1829, 2008
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1556-7036 print/1556-7230 online
DOI: 10.1080/15567030701268500

Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody

Biomass Fuels

J. HAN,1 H. KIM,2 S. CHO,2 and T. SHIMIZU3

1
Hubei Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion and New Materials, Wuhan
University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P.R. China
2
Department of Ecological Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology,
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Tempaku cho, Toyohashi, Japan

3
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Niigata University,
Ikarashi, Niigata, Japan

Abstract In this study, the experiments of comparing cedar pellet, cypress pellet,
and cypress sawdust combustion in a bubbling fluidized bed combustor (BFBC) was
carried out. To improve the combustion efficiency and avoid the agglomeration, the
porous alumina sand was used as bed material instead of conventional silica sand.
Experimental results indicated that pellet can be sufficiently burned in the BFBC, and
the CO emission was only 50–188 ppm. Meanwhile, the unburned carbon in fly ash
was considerably limited even neglected; both the unburned carbon in fly ash and CO
emission (3,700 ppm) was significantly high during sawdust combustion. Moreover,
it was difficult to operate the BFBC above 650ıC with the sawdust. Therefore, direct
combustion was not a good utilization method for sawdust. It was also observed that
volatile matter released from pellet volatilized and mostly burned in the dense zone
due to the porous alumina. The effect of operation parameters like temperature and
fluidized velocity on the pollution emission and combustion characteristic was also
evaluated. High temperatures can promote the combustion efficiency, while SO2 and
NOx emission is independent to temperature. As for fluidized velocity, the optimum
fluidized velocity in the tests is about 0.07 m/s.

Keywords alumina sand, biomass, combustion, fluidized bed combustor, woody

Introduction
Biomass is one of humanity’s earliest energy sources. In recent years, biomass utilization
has been attracted the attention of human again due to the viewpoints of regeneration
and CO2 mitigation. It is estimated the biomass share in the primary energy source will
be increased to approximate 15% by 2010 in the developed countries (Li, 2004). The
Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry predicted a renewable energy use of
17.7 million tons of oil equivalent (TOE) in the near future (Yukihiko, 2005).
At present, there are many biomass combustion technologies such as stove-fired,
grate-fired, and fluidized bed. Among the above methods, fluidized bed system was
reported to be the most efficient and suitable for converting biomass into energy (Quaak,

Address correspondence to Heejoon Kim, Department of Ecological Engineering, Toyohashi

University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi, 441-8580 Japan. E-mail:
kim@eco.tut.ac.jp

1820
 Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody Biomass Fuels 1821

1999; Bhattacharya, 1998; Olsson, 2004). Olsson (2004) compared softwood pellet com-
bustion in different burning equipments. The experimental results revealed that the pellet
burner emitted CO was well lower than that of stove and boiler. Permchart (2004)
experimentally studied the combustion of distinct biomass fuels (sawdust, rice hust,
and pre-dried sugar cane bagasse) in a fluidized bed combustor. In their experiments,
a combustion efficiency of over 99% could be achieved when firing sawdust and bagasse
at the maximum combustor load and excess air of 50–100%. The maximum combustion
efficiency of 86% for firing rice husk was obtained for excess air of about 60% owing to
unburned carbon. Gayan (2004), Nordin (2000), Eldabbagh (2005), Ohman (2000), Scala
(2004), and Leckner (1999) found that CO concentration and temperature is dependent
on operation parameters (excess of combustion air, fluidized velocity, temperature, and
bed materials). On the basis of experimental results, they claimed that CO concentration
decreased with an increase of the bed temperature and decrease of particle diameter of bed
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material. Fang (2004) reported that adding the secondary air can improve the combustion
efficiency of rice husk and the proper air split (primary air/secondary air) 7:3 are
reasonable for rice husk combustion in circulating fluidized bed. On-line concentrations
of O2 , CO, CO2 , SO2 , NOx and total hydrocarbons (CmHn) along the bed were measured
by Kuprianov (2006), and Burcak (2005). In their experiments, combustion efficiency for
different fuels was in the range of 97–99%. Furthermore, they deemed NOx from biomass
combustion was primarily formed by fuel-N, and independent with operation parameters.
However, the previous studies used silica sand as bed material. Many researchers reported
that silica was easy to be agglomerated during biomass combustion (Lin, 2003; Fabrizio,
2003; Garwal, 1994; Ghaly, 1993; Gabriel, 1995; Salour, 1993; Teresa, 2006; Lisabet,
2005). Ghaly (1993) and Gabriel (1995) reported severe agglomeration of silica sand in a
fluidized bed straw gasification system. Their study showed that a fluidized bed of silica
sand agglomerated in the presence of straw ash at a temperature of 800ıC which is much
lower than the fusion temperatures of both silica sand (1,610ıC) and straw ash (1,054ıC).
Alumina is a very stable ceramic material with very high liquid temperature. It is therefore
believed that there is no chemical interaction taking place between the alumina sand and
the ash of biomass (Lisabet, 2005). Moreover, previous studies successfully demonstrated
porous alumina sand could suppress the emission of unburned gases (CO and hydrocar-
bons) (Shimizu, 2005; Shimizu, 2001a; Shimizu, 2001b). Hence, porous alumina sand
is employed as bed material. In this work, we primarily compared the emission and
combustion characteristic for biomass pellets (cedar pellet and cypress pellet) and sawdust
with alumina sand, which has not yet been reported. Meanwhile, the concentrations of
O2 , CO, CO2 , SO2 , NOx along the bed under different loads is also studied.

Experimental Apparatus
A bubbling fluidized bed combustor (BFBC) is used for biomass combustion. The
schematic diagram of the BFBC is shown in Figure 1. The BFBC is made of stainless
steel. The cross section of the BFBC is 0.52  0.12, and the height is 1.7 m allowed with
0.35 m air distributor. The air distributor is located at the bottom part of the combustor,
which is consisted with 4 parts (0.12  0.12 m), each part has 36 holes of 1 mm in
diameter. The flow rate of air is controlled by four mass flow controllers. The pressure
drop between the inside and outside of the chamber is recorded by a U-type manometer.
There are 12 holes at the upper surface of the combustor and 5 holes at the side, which
are used to collect sample gas or monitoring temperature. A variable speed screw feeder
is used to provide fuel.
 1822 J. Han et al.
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Figure 1. The schematic diagram of fluidized bed combustor.

Experimental Procedure
Before the experiment, the bed material was fed into the chamber. At the start-up, BFBC
is heated by four electrical heaters, then the heaters are shut off when the temperature
of bed materials is over the ignition temperature of fuels. The flue gas compositions
(O2 , CO, CO2 and NOx) were measured by an analyzer (Horiba-5000, Horiba Corp.)
after removing particles and water vapor. Before the experiment, the gas analyzer was
calibrated using standard gases. In order to get the accurate results, every test is carried
out four times, and the average result is used in the work. Moreover, the same heat value
of fuel is feed to compare temperature difference.

Materials
During the experiment, porous alumina sands are used as bed material, and the static
height of sand bed is about 15 cm. The properties of sand are listed in Table 1. The
minimum fluidized velocity is about 0.08 m/s at room temperature.
Two alternative pellets have been considered in this work, together with one cypress
sawdust. Properties of the fuels are summarized in Table 2.
 Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody Biomass Fuels 1823

Table 1
The properties of sand

Specific Packing
surface area, Diameter, density, Real density,
Name m2 /g um kg/m3 kg/m3

Alumina sand 214 500 780 3,200

Table 2
Properties of the fuels

Ultimate analysis,
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wt%, daf Cedar pellet Cypress pellet Cypress sawdust

Carbon 45.96 47.53 48.24

Hydrogen 6.66 6.91 6.08
Oxygen 47.29 45.43 45.59
Nitrogen 0.08 0.02 0.02
Sulphur 0.01 0.11 0.07
Proximate analysis (wt%)
Moisture 10.8 7.18 10.37
Ash 0.88 0.53 0.74
Volatile 69.95 73.72 84.32
Heat value (J/g) 19,700 21,560 21,560
Physical characteristics
Diameter (mm) 6 6 0.1
Length (mm) 20 10

Results and Discussion

The temperature, O2 , CO2 , and CO concentration profiles along the bed under different
fuels are given in Figures 2–5. For pellet combustion, the temperature of bed material
is about 850ıC, which is well higher than that of sawdust (about 650ıC). In the case
of sawdust combustion too highly fluidized velocity will induce in increasing the loss
of unburned carbon since sawdust is very light, while low fluidized velocity cannot
keep the fluidization. Hence, the maximum load for sawdust combustion is 650ı C in
this experiment. Figure 2 also demonstrates that the temperature gradient for pellets is
larger than that of sawdust. The temperature gradient between 40 cm and 110 cm for the
pellet and sawdust are 110ı C and 220ıC, respectively. The reason can be attributed to
the properties of fuel. Pellet is denser and more compact than sawdust, thus, the volatile
matter released from pellet will take longer time than sawdust. Also, porous alumina sand
can capture part of volatile matters (Shimizu, 2001a; Shimizu, 2001b; Shimizu, 2005),
and the volatile from pellets is mostly burned in dense zone. Moreover, a great amount
of unburned sawdust escapes from the chamber with flue gases and burn along the bed.
Figure 3 depicts the height dependence of O2 concentration profile for different fuels.
Generally, O2 concentration is gradually decreased with the height of bed until volatile
matters released from fuel is depleted. For cedar pellet combustion, O2 concentration
 1824 J. Han et al.
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Figure 2. The temperature profile of different fuels along the height of the combustor.

Figure 3. The distribution of O2 under different fuels along the height of the combustor.

Figure 4. The distribution of CO under different fuels along the height of the combustor.
 Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody Biomass Fuels 1825
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Figure 5. The distribution of CO2 under different fuels along the height of the combustor.

decreases from 6.7 to 5.5% when the height shifts from 40 cm to 70 cm, and which
is further decreased to 5.0% at 110 cm. It is also observed that the O2 concentration
is lower than that of cypress pellet under same fuel/air. For sawdust, O2 concentration
sharply declines with the height due to volatile matters combustion.
Main biomass combustion reactions are as follows:
Biomass ! Heating=drying ! devolatilization !
gas phase combustion ! char combustion

Hence, the CO concentration decreases along the chamber due to gas phase combustion,
as shown in Figure 4. In these tests, CO emission is the range of 50–180 ppm for
pellet combustion due to the well combustion. Moreover, it is also observed that CO
concentration is significantly decreased along the bed in the dense zone in the case
of pellet, then the height seems to have a slight influence on CO concentration. The
phenomena can be explained that the volatile matter from pellets volatilizes and mostly
burns in the dense zone due to the porous alumina [24-26]. The temperature and oxygen
concentration profiles also confirm the above phenomena. Contrary to pellet, sawdust is
very light, which can be carried by flue gas, and may even escape from the chamber.
The visual observation also proves that there is much unburned sawdust in the cyclone
filter. Thus, the residence time in high temperature zone is short and combustion is
insufficient. The CO concentration is as high as 3,350 ppm at the exit of combustor.
The CO2 concentration profiles of the three fuels are demonstrated in Figure 5, which is
consistent with CO profiles.
Considering the difficulty of improving the operation temperature and low combus-
tion efficiency, we can make the conclusion that it is not feasible to utilize sawdust in
the fluidized bed combustor (FBC).

Comparison of Flue Gas Emissions under Different Temperatures

On the basis of the above conclusion, it is very difficult to effectively utilize sawdust in
the FBC; therefore, sawdust combustion is not taken into consideration in this run. Other
operation parameters except for temperature are the same as the above tests.
 1826 J. Han et al.

Figure 6. The CO and CO2 concentration profile under different temperatures.

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In the tests we investigate the main gaseous compositions emission under 700ıC,
800 C, 850ıC, and 900ıC for the two pellets. Figure 6 shows bed temperature dependence
ı

of CO concentration. In the temperature range of 700ıC–800ıC, the CO concentration

gradients are 800 ppm and 4,600 ppm for cedar pellet and cypress pellet, while they
are even decreased to 200 ppm and 500 ppm when temperature shifts from 800ıC to
900ıC. Hence, higher is very positive to improve the combustion efficiency of biomass.
However, too high temperature will induce in the agglomeration of bed materials and the
increase of heat loss. The temperature dependence of CO2 concentration also proves that
temperature has a significant effect on biomass combustion.
After comparing the above experimental results, it is observed that CO emission
in the case of cypress pellet is a little higher than that of cedar pellet even though the
temperature is the same. The difference may attribute to the property of fuel, volatile
matter in cypress pellet is higher than those of cedar pellet, and part of volatile matter
released from pellet is not completely burned at low temperature.
As for SO2 emission, they are very stable in the temperature range of 700ıC–900ıC,
as shown in Figure 7. The emission of SO2 is practically zero under both of the pellets
combustion due to the negligible S content in fuels. In these experiments, the operation
temperature is below 900ıC and the formation of thermal NOx is very unlikely. NOx

Figure 7. The NOx and SO2 concentration profile under different temperatures.
 Fluidized Bed Combustion of Some Woody Biomass Fuels 1827

Figure 8. The O2 concentration profile under various fluidized velocities.

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emission primarily depends on fuel-N. Hence, NOx emission is not temperature sensitive.
The content of N in cedar pellet and cypress pellet are 0.08 and 0.02, respectively.
Thus, NOx emission of cedar pellet is slightly higher than that of cypress in these
experiments.

Effect of Fluidized Velocity on CO Concentration

The effect of fluidized velocity on pellet combustion is shown in Figures 8 and 9. In
this run, fuel feed rate is kept constant and the fluidized velocity varies from 0.05 m/s
to 0.1 m/s. Figure 8 depicts the variation of O2 concentration along the bed under
different fluidized velocity. As seen in Figure 9, there is only a small CO concentration
gradient in the freeboard volume under 0.07 m/s and 0.1 m/s. The following reason is
likely responsible for the phenomena: The amount of CO or other combustible gases is
negligible in the freeboard due to the porous alumina sand and can capture some volatile
matter released from fuel, which is soon consumed at sufficient oxygen. In the case of
0.05 m/s, there is not enough oxygen for combustion and a great amount of CO is formed.
Accompanied with CO oxidation along the chamber, CO concentration is decreased
sharply. As mentioned above, cypress combustion produces more CO than cedar pellet
under the same operation condition. Figure 9 also confirms the above conclusion again.

Figure 9. The CO concentration profile under various fluidized velocities.

 1828 J. Han et al.

Conclusions
The effect of operation conditions and fuel type on CO, CO2 , NOx, and SO2 emission
are investigated in a bubbling fluidized bed combustor. The following conclusions are
made based on the experimental results:
Sawdust is difficult to effectively be utilized in FCB because it is very light.
High temperature can promote the combustion efficiency for pellet fuel.
CO concentration in the chamber for cypress pellet is higher than that of cedar pellet
because cypress pellet contains more volatile matter. CO concentration decreases
along the height, while the concentration gradient is very small in the freeboard
region. The phenomena means volatile matter released from pellet volatilized and
mostly burned in the dense zone due to the porous alumina can capture part of the
volatile matter.
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SO2 and NOx emissions are independent to operation parameters. Cypress pellet contains
more N and S than cedar pellet, which induces in more SO2 and NOx emission in
the case of cypress pellet combustion. The fluidized velocity of air or oxygen content
also has an important effect on CO emission until oxygen is enough, followed by
slight influence on the combustion. In this work, the optimum velocity is 0.07 m/s.

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