Advanced CFD modelling of air and recycled flue gas staging in a waste wood-fired grate boiler for higher combustion efficiency and greater environmental benefits.

Grate-fired boilers are commonly used to burn biomass/wastes for heat and power production. In spite of the recent breakthrough in integration of advanced secondary air systems in grate boilers, grate-firing technology needs to be advanced for higher efficiency and lower emissions. In this paper, innovative staging of combustion air and recycled flue gas in a 13 MW waste wood-fired grate boiler is comprehensively studied based on a numerical model that has been previously validated.

Microwave-assisted pyrolysis of biomass for liquid biofuels production.

Production of 2nd-generation biofuels from biomass residues and waste feedstock is gaining great concerns worldwide. Pyrolysis, a thermochemical conversion process involving rapid heating of feedstock under oxygen-absent condition to moderate temperature and rapid quenching of intermediate products, is an attractive way for bio-oil production. Various efforts have been made to improve pyrolysis process towards higher yield and quality of liquid biofuels and better energy efficiency.

Co-firing straw with coal in a swirl-stabilized dual-feed burner: modelling and experimental validation.

This paper presents a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling study of co-firing wheat straw with coal in a 150kW swirl-stabilized dual-feed burner flow reactor, in which the pulverized straw particles (mean diameter of 451microm) and coal particles (mean diameter of 110.4microm) are independently fed into the burner through two concentric injection tubes, i.e.