The IFRF Solid Fuel Database  has been updated again and now holds a complete set of data concerning the characterization of three coals in an oxy-fuel environment.  

The new data, like the records added in February, concerns solid fuels’ characterizations performed between November 2012 and March 2013 within the EU co-funded projects RELCOM and BRISK.

Of the 58 new records, 30 describe tests on biomasses and 28 tests on coals.  Together the two updates constitute a complete dataset on the characterization of three coals in an oxy-fuel environment.

Users of the IFRF Solid Fuel Database may now compare conventional and oxy-fuel devolatilization and char combustion.  The results of some additional tests enable the quantification of the role of char gasification with carbon dioxide and water in an oxy-fuel atmosphere.  Also, devolatilization and char combustion of various biomasses including straw, black pellet, wood pellet, palm kernel shell and lignin can be compared and analyzed to determine reliable kinetic parameters.

The IFRF Solid Fuel Database has been available to IFRF Members as an online resource since 2010 for use in the design and operation of industrial solid fuel fired combustors and gasifiers.  Originally populated with devolatilisation, char combustion and nitrogen release data from the IPFR (Isothermal Plug Flow Reactor), the key facility for solid fuel characterisation, the database is being steadily extended with information generated at the same source.

The IPFR was rebuilt and re-commissioned in 2010, and upgraded to simulate oxy/solid fuel conditions. The facility is now also fully operational for investigating the formation and fate of aerosols when firing coal and biomass blends in the presence of sulphur oxides, having been equipped with a special chimney to reproduce temperature-time histories in fouling region and with an ELPI Dekati for aerosol quantitative assessment.

IFRF Members can download the May 2011 report IFRF Doc. No. F39/y/01 Inorganic aerosol formation tests in the Isothermal Plug Flow Reactor which describes this process.

Solid Fuel Characterisation is an area of focus in the IFRF Research Agenda.  To join the discussion on the IFRF SFDB Forum, please sign in at http://sfdb.ifrf.net// or contact Tracey Biller to register.