Search

As the only renewable energy which can be converted into liquid fuels, biomass has developed various technologies of energy utilization. In order to adjust the syngas composition, increase the ratio of H2/CO and reduce CO2 content, this paper conducted biomass gasification experiment in an entrained flow bed on CaO sorption. The paper studied influence factors like the gasification temperature, ratio of CaO/B and gasification parameters, such as ratio of H2/CO, cold gas efficiency, cold gas yield or tar content in syngas. The result showed that raising gasification temperature or increasing added content of CaO which were beneficial to the improvement of H2 content. A maximum H2 output with a concentration of 62.7% and H2/CO ratio of 3.19 was achieved at CaO/C=1, H2O/B=0.3 and T=1100°C, meanwhile the cold gas efficiency was 86.07%, the cold gas yield reached 1.2Nm3/kg biomass, and the tar content was dropped to 314.6mg/Nm3.

This paper aims to investigate the rapid pyrolysis characteristics of Huainan coal using a tube furnace. Influence of temperature on yields and compounds of tar and char are tested. The result shows that aliphatic chains break gradually with increasing pyrolysis temperature. This leads an increase in aromaticity. Maximum tar yields were obtained at about 550°C, the char yields decreased and the gas yields increased with the pyrolysis temperature. The tar was isolated to aliphatic hydrocarbon aromatic hydrocarbon, non hydrocarbon and asphaltene, and characterized by chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The main content of tar include normal alkanes from C16-C30, two-,three- and four-ring aromatic hydrocarbons and alkyl-substituted hydroaromatic derivatives of polycyclic, phenols, indoles, quinines esters and others compounds.

Pulsed corona discharge in atmosphere has been widely regarded as an efficient flue gas treatment technology for the generation of active radical species, such as the OH radicals. The spatial distribution of OH radicals generated by pulsed corona discharge plays an important role in decomposing pollutants. The two-dimensional (2-D) distribution of OH radicals of positive wire--plate pulsed corona discharge was detected using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF). The influence of relative humidity (RH) and oxygen concentration on the 2-D distribution of OH radicals were investigated. The results indicated that the 2-D distribution of OH radicals was characterized by a fan-shaped distribution from the wire electrode to plate electrode, and both the maximum values of vertical length and horizontal width of the fan area was less than 1 cm. The 2-D distribution area of OH radicals increased significantly with increasing the RH and the optimum condition was 65% RH. The optimal level of the oxygen concentration for the 2-D distribution area of OH radicals was 2%. The process of OH radical generation and 2-D distribution area of OH radicals were significantly interfered when the oxygen concentration was larger than 15%. The total quenching rate coefficients for different RH values and oxygen concentration in this study were used to calculate the fluorescence yield of OH radical. The fluorescence yield, which is the ratio between the emission rate (Einstein coefficient) and the sum of the emission rate and quenching rate, was used to normalize the 2-D distribution area of OH radicals. The fluorescence yield of OH radical decreased with increasing the RH and oxygen concentration linearly and rapidly. It was also found that compared with the RH, the influence of the oxygen concentration had more notable effect on the fluorescence yield of OH radical and 2-D distribution area of OH radicals.

As the first step in coal combustion and gasification, coal devolatilization has significant effect on reaction process. Previous coal devolatilization models have some disadvantages, such as poor flexibility, model complexity, and requirement of characterization parameters. Recently, Sommariva et al. have proposed a multi-step kinetic model of coal devolatilization. This model avoids the disadvantages mentioned above and can predict elemental composition of tar and char. In this paper, the mechanism of this model has been revised for simple application to Chemkin. Revision method is that some reactions are split into more reactions by using one pseudo-intermediate-product to replace several final products. Simulation results show that calculation results from revised mechanism compare quite well with that from original mechanism and have good agreement with experimental data. The revised mechanism is accurate and can be applied to Chemkin very easily, which gives it wide application to simulation of coal pyrolysis, gasification and combustion.

In response to the deposition problem in biomass-fired boiler, inert addictive was tested to inhibit the possibility of coking. The deposition samples collected from final and primary superheater of biomass-fired CFB (circulating fluidized bed) boiler were grinded into fine powder. The inhibitive ability of additive was tested by mixing the deposition sample with different proportions of inhibitor under high temperature. By means of scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and other analytical procedures, the properties of the samples with inhibitor such as microstructure, composition were studied. The inhibitor was also introduced to the industrial biomass CFB boiler to verify its inhibition effect on superheater deposition. Unfortunately, the effect of adding inhibitor in industrial boiler is not certain, though the inhibitor added to the samples is obviously effective in weakening coking in the laboratory scope.

Absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) by blended diethanolamine (DEA) + 2-amino-2- methyl-1-propanol (AMP) and single DEA solvents were compared using hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC). Experimental results showed AMP additive has positive influence to improve CO2 absorption flux and the optimum AMP/DEA mass concentration ratio is between 0.2 and 0.4. Decreasing gas liquid ratio could greatly promote CO2 absorption, and operating temperature has weak effect on CO2 flux. Besides, large CO2 flux can be achieved with high concentration of DEA+0.2AMP solution due to the decrease of liquid phase resistance to mass transfer, but the optimal DEA concentration was recommended to be about 15% for DEA+0.2AMP solution considering the costs of amines in HFMC.

Experimental study on the physico-chemical properties of bio-oil and diesel emulsification has been carried out in this paper, which was based on the preliminary experiment. The effect of surface tension and viscosity on the stability of emulsions were particular concerned. It was found that the longest stable time, the lowest viscosity and lowest surface tension can be obtained simultaneously when the hydrophile and lipophile balance (HLB) value was of the optimal value, i.e. 6.5. Experimental results indicated that the stable time of emulsion decreased rapidly with the increase of bio-oil content, while the value of surface tension and viscosity increased. Meantime, it was shown that the most stable emulsions had the lowest value of viscosity and surface tension.

The dependence of chemical equilibrium constant on the reaction temperature and pressure and the feed molar ratio were theoretically calculated for indirect ethanol synthesis from syngas through the coupling of CO with methyl nitrite (MN) to dimethyl oxalate (DMO) and the hydrogenation of DMO to ethanol. It shows that the coupling process and the hydrogenation of DMO to ethanol are highly favorable at all temperatures and pressures, especially at low temperature. The hydrogenation of DMO to ethylene glycol (EG) and the further reaction of ethanol with H2 to high alcohol are thermodynamically favorable at low temperatures, below 630 and 450 K, respectively. Additionally, high reaction pressure is facilitated to EG and high alcohol formation. Accordingly, moderate reaction temperature (up 538 K) and low reaction pressure (below 1 MPa) are beneficial to ethanol production.

In this study, a commercial activated carbon was assessed as adsorbent for post-combustion CO2 capture. The breakthrough adsorption experiments were conducted in a fixed-bed column with simulated flue gas of 12% CO2. The effects of feed flow rate and adsorption pressure on breakthrough time and CO2 adsorption capacity were evaluated. The column efficiency was introduced to estimate the percentage of the utilization of the bed adsorbent capacity. At a higher flow rate, the breakthrough time, breakthrough capacity and column efficiency decreased. Conversely, increasing adsorption pressure was favorable to CO2 adsorption by the increase in breakthrough time, CO2 adsorption capacity and the column efficiency. During the experiments, temperature changes were detected at three positions inside the column to track the movement of breakthrough front.

Isolation of phenols from the middle oil fraction(170-230°C) of tar produced in the multi-cogeneration system has been investigated for the purpose of recovering valuable pure phenols, such as phenol, cresols, xylenol and ethyl-phenol. Phenolic compounds were separated from the middle oil by liquid-liquid extraction using alkali and sulfuric acid. The yield of phenolic fraction from the middle oil (170-230°C) is up to 37%, which is much higher compared with those of metallurgical coke plants. Chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to analyse phenolic compounds. The result shows that the phenol content is less than 2%, and main compounds are cresol(14%), xylenol(20%) . Phenols of the middle oil fraction(230-280°C) was also analysed, which main contain methyl naphthol(20%).

Biomass oxygen-steam gasification associated with synthesis technology known as indirect biomass liquefaction is regarded as one of the most promising technologies of biomass utilization. In this paper, a comprehensive gasification model was developed for the simulation of rice straw oxygen-steam gasification using ASPEN PLUS. The gasification process was divided into two parts: pyrolysis and gasification. The RYield module was used to simulate the pyrolysis process with an external FORTURN program to calculate the pyrolysis products while the gasification process was calculated by the RCSTR module. With the help of the model, the gasification of rice straw was simulated under different residence time, different temperature and different amount of steam. The results showed that the proper residence time and temperature is 1.5s and 1300°C, respectively. The optimum amount of steam is steam/biomass=0.12 while the addition of oxygen is oxygen/biomass=0.2.

Experiments were performed to investigate the release behavior of potassium and sodium in the biomass high-temperature entrained-flow gasification with the addition of acid oxide SiO2, basic oxide MgO, amphoteric oxide Al2O3. The results showed that the volatilization of alkali was found to strongly depend on temperature. High gasification temperature strengthened the alkali release. When the reactor temperature was 1200°C, the volatilization of alkali species were about 37.87% for K and 71.14% for Na. Three additives all favored the retention of potassium and sodium and the content of water-soluble potassium and sodium in the ash. Among the three additives, MgO had the best retention effect. The potassium and sodium content in the gas phase was as low as 46.6% and 67.3% compared with raw straw, respectively. In the entrained-flow gasification with short residence time, the additives retained more alkali metals by the physical and chemical adsorption. Part of the additive utilized as physical adsorbent during the gasification enhanced the ash melting point of the residue carbon.

A silica supported Cu catalyst with good performance for ethylene glycol (EG) production was prepared by the hydrolysis of tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) in one phase solution using methanol as co-solvent, followed by the precipitation of copper on SiO2 by ammonia evaporation. XRD, SEM and TEM were carried out to characterize the structural and morphology properties of the catalyst. The results showed that Cu particles were homogeneously dispersed on the support and thus lead to the high catalytic performance.

The NO and SO 2 gas conversion processes in a pulsed corona discharge field have been studied. The experiments were conducted to investigate the influences of water vapor and fly ash addition on the conversion efficiencies of NO and SO 2 . Experimental results show that positive pulsed corona discharge can facilitate NO and SO 2 conversion processes, and the conversion efficiencies of NO and SO 2 are primarily dependent on the radicals OH, O and the active species O 3 , HO 2 , H 2 O 2 , etc. With water vapor addition, SO 2 conversion efficiency is improved, but NO conversion process is restrained. Low fly ash concentration helps to enhance the conversion of NO and SO 2 ; however, the conversion efficiencies of NO and SO 2 are drastically degraded by high fly ash concentration addition. The synergistic effects of water vapor and fly ash addition strengthen the chemical adsorption ability of the fly ash surface, which results in a considerable improvement in the conversion of NO and SO 2 . Furthermore, the specific input energy plays an important role in NO and SO 2 conversion efficiencies. Measured conversion efficiencies of NO and SO 2 reach about 60% and 90%, respectively, under the conditions tested.

The spectrum of excited N2 molecules and ions was measured by optical emission spectroscopy in pulsed corona discharge with a wire-to-plate reactor. The ratio of emission intensities emitted by the excited molecules and ions of N2 was compared with numerical simulation to determine average electron energies and electric field distributions. Within 2 cm distance from wire electrode in horizontal and vertical directions, electric field and average electron energies appear to be in the ranges of 11.05 19.6 MV x m(-1) and 10.10-13.92 eV respectively; as the distance increases, average electron energies and electric field show a similar trend: first decrease and then increase. Chemically active species, such as OH, O and O3, can be generated through the energetic electron collisions with H2O and O2 directly or indirectly. For the NO oxidation, there is no coexistence of NO and O3, whereas there is a coexistence of NO and OH. NO is oxidized by O3 or O more efficiently than by OH radical.

Streamer plays a key role in the process of OH radical generation. The propagation of primary and secondary streamers of positive wire-plate pulsed corona discharge was observed using a short gate ICCD in air environment. The influence of the applied voltage on the properties was investigated. It was shown that the primary streamer propagation velocity, electric coverage and length of secondary streamer increased significantly with increasing the applied voltage. Then 2-D OH distribution was investigated by the emission spectrum. With the analysis of the OH emission spectra, the distribution of OH radicals showed a trend of decreasing from the wire electrode to its circumambience. Compared with the streamer propagation trace, the authors found that OH radical distribution and streamer are in the same area. Both OH radical concentration and the intensity of streamer decreased when far away from the wire electrode.

In order to get extensive knowledge of wire-to-plate pulsed corona discharge reactor, the influences of different diameters of wire electrode, different wire-to-plate and wire-to-wire spacing on OH radical generation were experimentally investigated under atmospheric pressure based on emission spectrum, and the spatial distribution of OH radicals in the electric field was also discussed in detail The results showed that OH radicals decrease along the X-axis, and the activation radius is approximately 20 mm; showing a trend of first increase and then decrease along the Y-axis, with the activation radius being more than 30 mm. OH radical has small change as the diameter of wire electrode changes below 2 mm, with a sharp decline as the diameter continues to increase. OH radical emission intensity increases as wire-to-wire spacing increases and decrease as wire-to-plate spacing increases.

Biomass pyrolysis in presence of abundant CaO additives is a fundamental process prior to CaO sorption enhanced gasification in biomass-based zero emission system. In the present study, thermogravimetric Fourier transform infrared (TG-FTIR) analysis was adopted to examine the effects of CaO additives on the mass loss process and volatiles evolution of wheat-straw pyrolysis. Observations from TG and FTIR analyses simultaneously demonstrated a two-stage process for CaO catalyzed wheat-straw pyrolysis, different from the single stage process for pure wheat-straw pyrolysis. CaO additives could not only absorb the released CO2 but also reduce the yields of tar species such as toluene, phenol, and formic acid in the first stage, resulting in decreased mass loss and maximum mass loss rate in this stage with an increase in CaO addition. The second stage was attributed to the CaCO3 decomposition and the mass loss and maximum mass loss rate increased with increasing amount of CaO additives. The results of the present study demonstrated the great potential of CaO additives to capture CO2 and reduce tars yields in biomass-based zero emission system. The gasification temperature in the system should be lowered down to avoid CaCO3 decomposition.

The experiments of the fly ash recycle combustion using Guizhou anthracite were carried out in a bench scale circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustor. Effects of some key operating parameters such as recycle ash to coal mass ratio (Ca to S molar ratio), temperature, reactivation modeof fly ash, circulation rateand fluidization velocity on the desulfurization efficiency were intensively investigated. It is shown that thelimestone utilization efficiency could be improved about 30% with the following operating conditions: the mass ratio of fly ash (reactivated by water and dried at 90°C) to coal was 0.45, the furnace temperature was 880°C, the water to ash mass ratio was 4.5% (the water-to-calcium molar ratio was 0.55) and circulation rate was 18.

This work presents experimental and numerical simulation results on secondary air jet penetration into a dense phase of a 2-D fluidized bed. Velocity measuring method and non-intrusive methods based on images were used in the experiments. Effects of secondary air nozzle size and angles, secondary air jet flow velocity and suspension density of the fluidized bed material on the air jet penetration were tested. The results show that with increasing of secondary air jet velocity, the jet range increases exponentially. Secondary air jet range decreases exponentially with increasing of average bed suspension density. The size of secondary air nozzle does not have significant impact on jet range. However, larger nozzle size may result in a lower velocity decay coefficient. It was also found the secondary air nozzle angle is not an independent parameter affecting jet range. The jet range may penetrate the most depth point into the fluidized bed with the angle of −30°. As a comparison, the numerical simulation was done with same parameters in the experiments. Comparison of experimental and numerical results shows good agreements.

Three kinds of blended absorbents were investigated on bench-scale experimental bench according to absorption rate and regeneration grade to select a reasonable additive concentration. The results show that, among methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) and piperazine (PZ) mixtures, comparing MDEA : PZ = 1 : 0.4 (m : m) with MDEA : PZ = 1 : 0.2 (m : m), the absorption rate is increased by about 70% at 0.2 mol x mol(-1). When regeneration lasting for 40 min, regeneration grade of blended absorbents with PZ concentration of 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 is decreased to 83.06%, 77.77% and 76.67% respectively while 91.04% for PZ concentration of 0. MDEA : PZ = 1 : 0.4(m : m) is a suitable ratio for MDEA/PZ mixtures as absorption and regeneration properties of the blended absorbents are all improved. The aqueous blends with 10% primary amines and 2% tertiary amines could keep high CO2 absorption rate, and lower regeneration energy consumption. Adding 2% 2-Amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP) to 10% diethanolamine (DEA), the blended amine solvents have an advantage in absorption and regeneration properties over other DEA/AMP mixtures. Blended solvents, which consist of a mixture of primary amines with a small amount of tertiary amines, have the highest absorption rate among the three. And mixed absorbents of secondary amines and a small amount of sterically hindered amines have the best regeneration property. To combine absorption and regeneration properties, blends with medium activator addition to tertiary amines are competitive.

Three typical absorbents such as aqueous of aminoacetic acid potassium (AAAP), monoethanolamine (MEA) and methyldiethanolamine(MDEA) are selected to investigate the performance of CO2 separation from flue gas via membrane contactors made of hydrophobic hollow fiber polypropylene porous membrane. Impacts of absorbents, concentrations and flow rates of feeding gas and absorbent solution, cyclic loading of CO2 on the removal rate and the mass transfer velocity of CO2 are discussed. The results demonstrate that the mass transfer velocity was 7.1 mol x (m2 x s)(-1) for 1 mol x L(-1) MEA with flow rate of 0.1 m x s(-1) and flue gas with that of 0.211 m x s(-1). For 1 mol L(-1) AAAP with flow rate of 0.05 m x s(-1) and flue gas of 0.211 m x s(-1), CO2 removal rate (eta) was 93.2 % and eta was 98% for 4 mol x L(-1) AAAP under the same conditions. AAAP being absorbent, eta was higher than 90% in a wider range of concentrations of CO2. It indicates that membrane-based absorption process is a widely-applied and promising way of CO2 removal from flue gas of power plants, which not only appropriates for CO2 removal of flue gas of widely-used PF and NGCC, but also for that of flue gas of IGCC can be utilized widely in future.

Using an air-H2O DC corona radical shower system, the influences of reside time of flue gas in the reactor, velocity of flue gas and NO concentration on NO oxidation process were studied. The results show that the increasing velocity of flue gas can restrain corona development and the increasing NO concentration can make discharge more easy. The reside time of flue gas in the reactor has less effect on the NO oxidation. The NO oxidation rate increased only from 54.5% to 57.6% at 2 W input power when the reside time of flue gas in the reactor increased from 8.5 s to 34.2 s. However, the velocity of flue gas has important effect on the NO oxidation. At 1.7 W x h/m3 energy density, when the velocity of flue gas increased from 1.4 cm/s to 6.3 cm/s, the NO oxidation rate dropped from 60.0% to 38.6% and the energy yield also falled from 20.8 g/(kW x h) to 13.3 g/(kW x h). Under the certain flux of humid air, NO initial concentration has a best value, which was about 100 x 10(-6) in this experiment.

Non-thermal plasma technologies offer an innovative approach to decomposing various volatile organic compounds(VOCs). The decomposition of toluene from simulated flue gas was investigated using a pipe electrode with nozzles for the generation of free radicals. Corona characteristics and decomposition of toluene were investigated experimentally. In addition, the decomposition mechanism of toluene was explored in view of reaction rate. The experimental results showed that the humidity of additional gas has an important effect on corona characteristics and modes and stable streamer corona can be generated through optimizing flow rate and humidity of additional gas. Applied voltage, concentration of toluene, humidity of toluene and resident time are some important factors affecting decomposition efficiency. Under optimizing conditions, the decomposition efficiency of toluene can reach 80%. These results can give a conclusion that the corona radical shower technology is feasible and effective on the removal of toluene in the flue gas.

In this paper, removal of NOx (namely DeNOx) from flue gas by radical injection combined with NaOH solution (26% by weight of NaOH in water) scrubbing was investigated. The experimental results showed that the steady streamer corona occurs through adjusting the flow rate of the oxygen fed into the nozzles electrode. The vapor in the oxygen has influence on the V-I characteristics of corona discharge. Both HNO2 and HNO3 come into being in the plasma reactor and the DeNOx efficiency in the plasma reactor is more than 60%. The overall DeNOx efficiency of the whole system reaches 81.7% when the NaOH solution scrubbing is collaborated.

Torrefaction is a slow pyrolysis process that is carried out in the relatively low temperature range of 220–300°C. The influence of torrefaction as a pretreatment on biomass gasification technology was investigated using a bench-scale torrefaction unit, a bench-scale laminar entrained-flow gasifier, and the analysis techniques TGA-FTIR and low temperature nitrogen adsorption. A series of experiments were performed to examine the characteristics of the torrefaction process, the properties of torrefaction products, and the effects of torrefaction on gas composition, cold gas efficiency and gasification efficiency. The results showed that during the torrefaction process the moisture content of biomass were reduced, and the wood fiber structure of the material was destroyed. This was beneficial to storage, transport and subsequent treatments of biomass in large scale. For solid products, torrefaction increased the energy density, decreased the oxygen/carbon ratio, and created a more complex pore structure. These improved the syngas quality and cold gas efficiency. Combustible gases accounted for about 50% of non-condensable gaseous torrefaction products. Effective use of the torrefaction gases can save energy and improve efficiency. Overall, biomass torrefaction technology has good application prospects in gasification processes.