Experimental study and design of biomass co-firing in a full-scale coal-fired furnace with storage pulverizing system

Co-firing coal and biomass in existing power plants facilitates influential advancement in the use of renewable energy resources and carbon emissions reduction. Biomass is intended as a CO₂-zero net emission because, during its rise, it uses the same fraction of CO₂ from the air as that released during its combustion. In addition, the content of nitrogen and sulfur in biomass is lower than in coal. Therefore, the emissions of NO_x and SO_x can be minimized by co-firing it with coal. In general, the effect of biomass direct co-firing on safety, pulverizing system performance, furnace efficiency, and NO_x emission in full-scale furnaces is rarely studied. In this study, biomass direct co-firing was carried out in a 55 MW tangentially fired pulverized coal furnace. The effects of biomass co-firing on safety, the performance of the pulverizing system, furnace efficiency, and pollutant emissions (unburned carbon and NO_x) are studied. The results show that the blending of biomass fuel with less than 20% of coal has no issue with respect to auto-ignition and safety. The performance of the pulverizing system is affected up to a certain limit due to the difficulty of grinding the biomass particles into required fineness. The biomass co-firing up to 20% is feasible, but greater than this percentage will severely affect the furnace efficiency. The co-firing of biomass enhanced the NO_x reduction significantly and further improved the performance of the SNCR process. This study could provide guidance for the application of biomass co-firing in industrial furnaces.