Combustion/Gasification in bubbling and circulating fluidised beds using solid fuels as coal, biomass and wastes

The group has a tradition of research on bubbling and circulating fluidised bed combustion and gasification. Combustion in bubbling fluidized beds is a widely developed technology for a great variety of fuels and installation scales. Its application to high reactivity fuels such as Spanish lignites, characterized by high sulphur and ash contents has shown their feasibility, from the point of view of combustion efficiencies and SO2 retention. Circulating fluidised beds (CFB) as a well-known modern reactor of two-phases, gas and solids, is receiving wide research attention in view of its potential as an economic and environmentally acceptable technology for burning low-grade coals, biomass and organic wastes, which are becoming interesting for energy production. In forest rich countries, CFB combustion has increased its market share of biomass combustion during recent years. The main reasons are high burnout of the fuel, wide fuel span, high thermal efficiency, low emissions of harmful gases and a competitive price. The same hold true also for biomass gasification but in an earlier stage in market expanding.

The group investigation has been concentrated on the analysis different aspect of the process, such as fluid-dynamics of gas-solids flow, heat transfer, devolatilization and char combustion/gasification kinetics, SO2 sorbents characterization, etc. In addition, because mathematic modelling has been proven as an efficient method to advance our know-how in a systematic

way, and together with experimental data, create efficient tools for R&D and engineering work, an important emphasis has been done on the modelling and simulation of carbon/biomass combustion efficiencies and SO2 retentions.

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10kW Bubbling Fluidised bed combustion/gasification pilot plant with sulphur retention by calcium sorbents