Combustion characteristics and arsenic retention during co-combustion of agricultural biomass and bituminous coal

Chuncai Zhou; Guijian Liu; Xudong Wang; Cuicui Qi; Yunhu Hu

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2016.04.104

Combustion characteristics and arsenic retention during co-combustion of agricultural biomass and bituminous coal

Bioresour Technol. 2016 Aug:214:218-224. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2016.04.104. Epub 2016 Apr 23.

Authors

Chuncai Zhou¹, Guijian Liu², Xudong Wang³, Cuicui Qi³, Yunhu Hu⁴

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China. Electronic address: lgj@ustc.edu.cn.
³ CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huainan Normal University, Huainan 232001, China.

PMID: 27136608
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2016.04.104

Abstract

A combination of thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and laboratory-scale circulated fluidized bed combustion experiment was conducted to investigate the thermochemical, kinetic and arsenic retention behavior during co-combustion bituminous coal with typical agricultural biomass. Results shown that ignition performance and thermal reactivity of coal could be enhanced by adding biomass in suitable proportion. Arsenic was enriched in fly ash and associated with fine particles during combustion of coal/biomass blends. The emission of arsenic decreased with increasing proportion of biomass in blends. The retention of arsenic may be attributed to the interaction between arsenic and fly ash components. The positive correlation between calcium content and arsenic concentration in ash suggesting that the arsenic-calcium interaction may be regarded as the primary mechanism for arsenic retention.

Keywords: Agricultural biomass; Arsenic retention; Bituminous coal; Co-combustion; Thermochemical.

MeSH terms

Arsenic / chemistry*
Biomass*
Coal / analysis*
Coal Ash / chemistry
Kinetics
Thermogravimetry

Substances

Coal
Coal Ash
Arsenic