• Active Energy and Cobant to commercialise coal-biomass blend

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    • Post Author

      Patrick Lavery

      Combustion Industry News Editor

British biomass company Active Energy has agreed a joint venture with Polish coal producer Cobant SP ZOO to commercialise a particular coal fines/biomass blend using Active Energy’s proprietary biomass product CoalSwitch. After Cobant tested a number of different biomass products over the last three years, it determined CoalSwitch to be the best performing, with the 85% coal fines/15% CoalSwitch blend being the most advantageous of all. The agreement paves the way for an effective fuel to be made from sawmill waste and forestry residue (the sources for CoalSwitch) and coal fines recovered from coal waste dumps (using Cobant’s coal waste reclamation technology). It is presumed that the fuel could be combusted in coal-fired plants without the need for extensive retrofitting of the plants (which is CoalSwitch’s big advantage over its rivals), delivering lower carbon emissions. Active Energy demonstrated CoalSwitch at the University of Utah a few years ago and attracted considerable interest in doing so.