Expert meeting on Combustion of Challenging Biomass Fuels , Lyon, May 4, 2010

Aim:

An upcoming
issue driven by the difference in fuel price of is the desire to burn
uncommon and challenging fuels with low ash melting temperatures and
high N and Cl content, such as (pellets from) agrifuels such as straw
and press cake, reed canary grass, RDF, chicken litter, etc.

The combustion technology needs to be properly designed or adapted to be
able to deal with these fuels, as it may lead to excessive corrosion in
boiler tubes, excessive slagging and fouling as well as much higher
emission of NOx and (fine) particles.

At the same time, it can be observed that the superheater steam
temperature (and thereby electric efficiency) of biomass power plants
for challenging fuels has over the years increased significantly, for
example there are power plants based on straw that generated steam of
540°C. This mainly depends mainly on the biomass composition, the boiler
configuration and the boiler materials used.

At the European Bioenergy Conference in Lyon (May 2010), Task 32
organised an expert workshop on ‘Combustion of Challenging Biomass
Fuels’. The workshop presented:

• The
  resource basis of alternative fuels for small scale and industrial
  combustion

• The
  consequences of using challenging fuels for furnace design, boiler
  operation and emissions

• 
  Approaches for adaptations of technical design

• Outlook
  for new boiler materials and limits in steam temperature

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