Homogenous and heterogeneous combustion in the secondary chamber of a straw-fired batch boiler

¹ AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Energy and Fuels, al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
² Silesian University of Technology, Institute of Thermal Technology, Konarskiego 22, 44-100 Gliwice

^* Corresponding author: mszubel@agh.edu.pl

Published online: 12 May 2017

Abstract

Currently, the attention of the producers of biomass batch boilers is mostly focused on the problem of the total efficiency of energy conversion, CO emissions as well as particulate matter emissions. Due to the regulations of the European Union, the emissions referred to above have to be kept at certain levels because of health considerations, but also because of the necessity to increase the efficiency of the devices. The paper presents the process of analysis of a straw-fired small-scale boiler. In this study, the early stage CFD model presented in a previous paper [1] has been improved and evaluated. Based on [2], an additional set of specimens participating in homogeneous gas reactions was assumed to describe the combustion process sufficiently. Associated Arrhenius parameters have been applied for the description of these reactions. ANSYS Fluent 16 has been used to perform the analysis and the analysis was focused on the CO emissions level as well as on the impact of the modelling approach on the result of the computing. Moreover, losses related to incomplete combustion have been calculated for each of the considered cases.