1. Sources

The present Combustion File is part of the cluster of CFs produced within the literature survey phase of the industrial sponsored research and development project PowerFlam1 and is confidential to the participants registered for that project.

This CF is specifically concerned with the research project:

Gerhardt, Th., Rebmann, H. Spliethoff, and Hein, K.R.G. (1996): Study of the Combined Combustion of Municipal Sewage Sludge in coal dust furnace, which is published within the Journal: VGB Krafterkstechnik 76, Number 5, pp 372-382

2. Background

·         This combustion file is concerned with the provision of combustion related data to the sponsors.

·         In this html file the source of the data is summarised in section 4 below, in order to give the reader a general overview of the way the data was collected.

·         Fuel and related data, prepared for calculation, are presented in individual Microsoft Excel Worksheets, all contained within a Workbook.

·         Please note that in some cases, the worksheet tabs within a workbook are not all visible without scrolling horizontally.

·         This workbook can be down-loaded by the reader and saved to her/his hard disk.

·         To achieve this click on the “xls” icon on the left hand side of the banner above. The file will be retrieved from the server, and with up-to-date versions of the browser, will appear in a separate window, from which it may be saved to the user’s hard disk.

·         The data in these worksheets are protected – thus the reader cannot change the worksheet without knowledge of the protection password.

·         However the reader can copy and paste the data into his/her own project work book as required – at this point the accuracy and integrity of the data becomes the responsibility of the reader. Included in this workbook are copies of the abstract and synopsis for reference purposes.

·         All credits and sources, and where necessary, instructions/advice for data use, are presented in this html file. These are not necessarily reproduced in the Excel Work Sheets.

3. Abstract

The Institute of Process Engineering and Power Plant Technology of the University of Stuttgart (IVD) runs several test facilities varying in size from laboratories to semi-industrial pilot facilities. An overview of the experimental furnaces and their integration into related fields of test methods, scale-up modelling and emission research is provided in the article. The facilities are used to examine the combustion behaviour of gaseous, liquid, and particularly solid charging materials. Based on research into the combustion of conventional fuels (gas, oil, coal), the scope of charging materials has been extended to biomasses as regenerative sources of energy and to waste products, such as municipal sewage sludge and has thus adapted to modern issues of fuel engineering.

The combined combustion of biomasses and municipal sewage sludge with coal is being examined within the framework of the European Union’s research programme APAS, Clean Coal Technology Programme. Research work by 31 project partners in 9 countries, coordinated by the IVD, was performed and evaluated during a two-year period. Divided into fluidised bed furnaces and pulverised fuel furnaces, the tests ranged from small bench scale facilities in order to determine the fundamental principles, to semi-industrial pilot facilities with the possibility of simple variations of all practice-related values, to the verification of the results on operating power plants.

In addition to coordinating the research project, IVD performed its own tests in a semi-industrial test facility for pulverised fuel furnaces. The pulverised coal combustion facility used also simple and cost effective adaptations to flexible parameter variations during the experiments, due to its maximum thermal power of 500 kW. On the other hand, the facility is sufficiently large to obtain comparable and transferable results, which provide information about the conditions in large plants.

The objective of the APAS project was closer examination of the following tasks in the production of energy while bearing in mind the decrease in CO₂ emissions:

–          development of the necessary fuel processing and fuel dosing in regard to combined combustion,

–          determination of the effects of combined combustion on the operating behaviour of the facilities, the combustion process in the boiler, and the selection of material,

–          determination of the expected gas emissions and properties of the residue.

Available also in German language, see Source.

4. Synopsis