Emissions from co-firing lignite and biomass in an oxy-fired CFBC

The co-combustion of a high-sulfur lignite and biomass blend (up to 50% by weight) has been studied in a small oxy-fired circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) pilot plant. Here the goal is to examine the effect of biomass share on NOx, SO2 and CO emissions. In these tests, a series of runs has looked at the effect of increasing biomass share under air firing, followed by tests in oxy-firing mode. The results show that the emissions are remarkably insensitive to the biomass share, and are comparable to other results for coal combustion, and likely to be well below any current emission guidelines. Overall, there appear to be no direct challenges to oxy-fuel co-firing in terms of gaseous emissions, although the simple lack of studies means that significantly more data are required on CFBC oxy-firing using a much wider range of biomass and coal types. K doping was also examined and did not result in significant formation of K phases on deposit probes.