Better biomass burning helps reach … – Information Centre – Research & Innovation

Heating and cooling are liable for just about half of the EU’s overall electrical power use. In the battle to cut down carbon emissions, it is crucial that renewable sources of electrical power become much more successful and much more broadly applied.

Representing in excess of 90 % of all renewable heat created in 2014, biomass could perform a vital part. Strengthening the technological know-how applied in biomass-fuelled mixed heat and electric power (CHP) vegetation, which produce electricity and seize the usable heat that is created, has sizeable likely for assisting to satisfy sustainable electrical power targets.

The EU-funded BIOFFICIENCY venture established out to determine and tackle challenges that now restrict the productiveness of CHP vegetation.

The intense, a few-12 months venture concluded in October 2019, getting succeeded in growing CHP plant performance and, as a final result, decreasing emissions (carbon dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide). The investigation crew has also established a blueprint for long run biomass-fuelled CHP vegetation.

‘We aimed to produce a holistic foundation for the following generation of big-scale biomass CHP vegetation, utilising their large likely for price tag-competitive electrical power and heat generation in environmentally friendly circumstances,’ claims venture coordinator Sebastian Fendt of the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

‘Not only could the swap in direction of renewable electrical power options like biomass develop in excess of half a million new jobs across the EU, but it would also decrease the total of emissions by changing coal-dependent electrical power generation.’

Ash-related issues

When it comes to burning biomass, ash-related challenges are a single of the principal bottlenecks. For case in point, some varieties of biomass create ash that corrodes the electric power plant’s internal surfaces at substantial temperatures. This perhaps prospects to injury and hence will increase servicing prices. It also limits the temperature of steam, which in transform lessens the general performance of the combustion system.

A person of BIOFFICIENCY’s key investigations tested a wide variety of heat-exchanger products inside modern day electric power vegetation to uncover those most resistant to corrosion. Researchers discovered strategies of improving upon CHP vegetation by the preference of various heat-exchanger products and by applying new cleansing routines.

The crew applied exam amenities across Europe to produce a design of how fly ash is fashioned for the duration of biomass combustion.

By assessing present gasoline pretreatment strategies, the venture located that it was possible to substantially cut down emissions and deliver enhancements in the fuel’s bodily and chemical houses. Optimising additives and introducing novel pretreatment strategies – this sort of as steam explosion, hydrothermal carbonisation, and torrefaction – has lessened the manufacturing of dangerous emissions and allowed CHP vegetation to use a broader variety of biomass feedstock.

Also, a big-scale experiment tested out state-of-the-art sensor programs intended to automatically mix fuels and integrate additives.

Biomass breakthroughs

In the long run, the project’s mixed conclusions have presently been applied by many companions. For case in point, Mitsubishi Hitachi Ability Systems intended a new 300 thermal megawatt (MWth) biomass-fuelled CHP plant that reaches the benchmarks and targets demanded by the EU’s Renewable Power Directive II.

Challenge spouse Valmet not too long ago offered their pre-hydrolysis reactor – the world’s 1st steady steam explosion pretreatment plant for tough biomasses. Other conclusions by BIOFFICIENCY had been applied to boost Valmet’s Superheater KCl Corrosion management program for managing corrosion brought about by alkali chlorides.

The researchers also formulated concepts for applying the by-merchandise to make the system even much more sustainable. ‘We tested various strategies of applying ash that outcomes from the combustion system alternatively of dealing with it as a squander product,’ clarifies Fendt. ‘Using it in design products, like geopolymers or calcium-silicate blocks, has proved to be a single incredibly promising software.’

The researchers also formulated concepts for applying the by-merchandise to make the system even much more sustainable. ‘We tested various strategies of applying ash that outcomes from the combustion system alternatively of dealing with it as a squander product,’ clarifies Fendt.

ENGIE, a different venture spouse, has located strategies of applying ash to develop design products this sort of as geopolymers and calcium-silicate blocks. The business is now searching into how it can carry these promising purposes to current market.