Jiseon Park  Jaewook Lee  Yongwoon Lee  Youngjae Lee  Won Yang  Taeyoung Chae1  Jaekwan Kim

10.7464/ksct.2023.29.3.193

Herbaceous biomass Slagging Kaoline Thermo-chemical equilibrium calculation

Biomass has been used to secure renewable energy certificates (REC) in domestic and overseas coal-fired power plants. In recent years, biofuel has been diversified from traditional wood pellets to non-woody biomass. Non-woody biomass has a higher content of alkaline metals such as K and Na than wood-based biomass, resulting in a lower melting point and an increase in slagging on boiler tubes, which reduces boiler efficiency. This study analyzed the effect of kaolin, an additive commonly used to increase melting points, on biomass co-firing to coal through thermochemical equilibrium calculations. In a previous experiment on biomass co-firing to coal conducted at 80 kWth, it was interpreted that the use of kaolin actually increased the amount of fouling. In this study, analysis showed that when kaolin was added, aluminosilicate compounds were generated due to Al2O3, which is abundant in coal, and mullite was formed. Thus, it was confirmed that the amount of slag increased when more kaolin was used. Further analysis was conducted by increasing the biomass co-firing rate from 0% to 100% at 10% intervals, and the results showed non-linear liquid slag generation. As a result, it was found that the least amount of liquid slag was generated when the biomass co-firing rate was between 50 and 60%. The phase diagram analysis showed that high melting point compounds such as leucite and feldspar were most abundantly generated under these conditions.