Characterisation of Flow Properties of Coal-Petcoke-Biomass Mixtures for Co-firing

Solid biomass is often mixed with coal for cofiring in power plants to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The resulting powder mixtures can give rise to handling and feeding problems due to the occurrence of intermittent flow or blockage. In this paper the flow properties of mixtures of a coal-petcoke powder and two types of biomass materials, dried olive husk (OH) and grape seed meal (GSM), were studied. The most significant effects on the cohesive properties of some powder mixtures were found for low biomass content mixtures due to their higher fraction of fine particles.