Investigation of pirina combustion in a test boiler for energy production


Doç. Dr. YETKİN DUMANOĞLU

Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Çevre Teknolojisi (Yl) (Tezli), Türkiye

Tez Danışmanı: Abdurrahman Bayram

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2003

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Özet:

As the resources of the fossil fuels are exhausted and air pollution due to usage of these fuels is a major problem, alternative energy resources are considered seriously. Biomass usage is common among different alternative energy resources. Olive oil production waste, pirina, is a good example of biomass in Mediterranean countries because of its high availability. In this study, fuel characteristics of pirina were determined and appropriate combustion conditions to obtain low emissions were investigated.

 

     Pirina’s oil, water and solid contents vary depending on the olive oil production processes. The average values were found as 4-8% oil, 20-60% water and 40-70% olive stone and pulp. Proximate analyses were conducted on raw pirina and de-oiled pirina samples in order to identify fuel characteristics of pirina. Result were 25.8-69.3% moisture, 2.5-3.1 %ash, 67.9-70.6% volatile matter, 25.8-28.7% fixed carbon, 18,225-20,413 kj/kg higher heating value for raw pirina and 6.3-16.7% moisture, 2.7-7.1 %ash, 57.5-68.2% volatile matter, 22.1-28.6% fixed carbon, 19,196-19,860 kj/kg higher heating value for de-oiled pirina. Raw pirina should not be used directly as fuel due to its high moisture and oil content. Therefore, the usage of de-oiled pirina as a fuel was investigated. Pirina has high volatile matter content. Gasification of volatile matters at low temperatures and their release through stack without complete combustion is an important negative factor for pirina combustion.

 

     Combustion tests were conducted using a laboratory scale boiler. The fuel feeding rate was established using the screw type feeder having a capacity of 40 g/sec. Combustion tests were made in different feeding rates while feeding and stop times ranged between 1-3 seconds and 30-60 seconds, respectively. According to elementary analyses of pirina, stoichiometric oxygen requirement for combustion varied between 4.15 to 4.5 Nm3/kg. Low carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were obtained for excess air ratios between 2.0 to 2.2 during combustion tests.

 

     The combustion tests were repeated for different fuel feeding rates and fluctuations of CO emissions were observed throughout the experiments. Average fuel flow rate was 7.5 kg/h for Run 1 and Run 2, and 10 kg/h for Run 3 and Run 4. Average CO emissions in these Runs were 1451, 1341, 1664, 1723 mg/Nm3, respectively. Average excess air ratios were 2.6, 2.7, 2.2, 2.2, respectively. According to results of combustion experiments, CO emissions of the test boiler were generally above the emission limits (460 mg/Nm3, based on 6% O2).

 

     The biggest problem encountered during the experiments of this study was the exact adjustment of air to fuel ratio. This problem originated from combustion air feeding system of the furnace. And this resulted in incomplete combustion. CO emissions measured during combustion for different excess air ratios (λ) were compared and it was found that CO emissions increased as the excess air ratio increased. This was due to the decrease of temperature in combustion zone (650-800 ºC) with increasing λ.

 

     As a result of the experiments to achieve low CO emissions, it was concluded that fuel feeding must be done automatically and continuously and the combustion system should have secondary air feeding. The furnace must be designed to increase the retention time of volatile matter at high temperatures. In line with the results obtained, it was suggested that combustion system should be improved and experiments should be continued.

 

     In line with these results obtained, combustion systems should be improved and experiments should be continued.