Testing of flue gas emissions of a biomass pellet boiler

and abatement of particle emissions

Abstract
The aim is to investigate flue gas emissions, particularly pollutants CO,
NOx and particle emissions, of a domestic biomass boiler under various
operating conditions. the primary and secondary air supply for the biomass
furnace are provided by the factory-set openings and vent tubes, the flue gas
emissions measured are NOx 54.92 ppmv, CO 2 11.98 vol%, CO 0.24 vol%, O 2
8.19 vol% and PM0.1-10 concentrations 72.7 mg/Nm3 by burning wood pellets.

1. Introduction:
Although biomass combustion releases some combustion pollutants
(CO, NOx, SOx etc.), which cause some concerns, substituting biomass for
fossil fuels (particularly coal) can reduce SO 2 and NOx emissions (acid rain
precursors) due to the low sulphur and low nitrogen contents of biomass.
Therefore, the use of biomass energy provides substantial benefits as far as
the environment is concerned.
Biomass combustion generates a huge number of fine particles which
have an impact on air quality and consequently adverse health effects. In
particular, the fine particles PM2.5 are potentially more harmful than larger
particles because they can reach deeper into the lower respiratory tract of
the lungs.
An ABB continuous gas analyzer with infrared spectroscopy is used to
measure the compositions of CO2, CO and O2; a Horiba chemiluminescent
NOx analyzer is applied to examine NOx emission.

2. Experimental methodology:
2.1 Wood pellet biomass boiler:
A 50 kW Ashwell wood pellet biomass boiler, is used to drive an ORC-based
CHP system. The biomass boiler can operate automatically controlled by a
monitor panel. Combustion in the furnace is stable and continuous as the
wood pellet auger screw conveyor can provide fuel pellets automatically. The
biomass boiler has a type of underfed burner, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig.1

The 1st air supply is delivered into the base tray of the burner through the
pores and the 2nd air supply is conveyed through the four vent tubes. The air
flow directions from the secondary air supply vent tubes are parallel and
separated with the distance of 22.55 mm for high vent tubes and 22.43 mm
for low vent tubes to make four streams of air into circulating flow, as shown
in

Fig. 2.
The two blowers are used to drive the 1st air intake and 2 nd air intake,
respectively, and their air intake gates may be adjusted to modify the air
flow rates.
The wood Pellet is 6 mm in diameter and 15e20 mm in length with the
calorific value 4.8 kWh/kg, moisture content <10%, ash content <0.7%.
Furnace burning rate is around 12.7 kg pellets/hour under continual
combustion.
2.2

Flue gas test equipment:

2.2.1 Sampling of gaseous emissions

Gas analyzers cannot withstand the hot and humid flue gases for direct
analyses. In addition, the particle concentration also has to be decreased, to
avoid particle coagulation in the sampling line. For an ABB gas analyzer
combined with a Horiba analyzer in this study, their operating temperatures
are within the range of 5-40 C.
In order to sample the cool and dry gaseous emissions for the analyzers, a
concentric tube-type heat exchanger, as shown in Fig. 3, was designed and
made in order to sample flue gases at the exit of the boiler, i.e., at the inlet
of the chimney. Cooling is necessary for flue gas prior to entering the
analyzers due to its high temperature of above 200 _C. In addition, a quartz
wool filter was deployed at the inlet of the flue gas sampling probe as the
first barrier of particles and moisture, since the gas analyzers are only used
to measure dry gaseous emissions.

Fig.3

The Horiba sampler is equipped with a gas sampling pump that is capable
of providing two channels of gaseous samples for the Horiba analyzer and
the ABB analyzer, as shown in Fig. 4.

Before the flue gas was analyzed, the two analyzers were calibrated. If
necessary, calibrations of the analyzers were repeated during or after the
scheduled tests.
2.2.2 Particulate emission monitor:
Flue gas particle emission is detrimental to human hearts and lungs, so PM 0.110 must be detected and removed before the flue gas is discharged into the
atmosphere. The particle monitor is able to detect particle emission
concentration within the range of 0.001-150 mg/m 3 under the particle size
range of 0.1-10 mm and operational temperature range of 0-50 C.

3. Experimental results:

3.1
Flue gas temperature:
All the temperatures were measured in the boiler system with K-type
sheathed thermocouples which can measure the temperature range of -40
C - 1200 C with the accuracy 2.5 C. After the biomass boiler was ignited,
the boiler was heated up and the flue gas temperatures gradually went
stable within an hour. Although the flue gas temperature of 245.3 C on
average is relatively stable, the compositions of flue gas are somewhat
fluctuating.
3.2
Flue gas emission composition:
The composition of flue gas is very complicated and dependent on the
flow rate of intake air and fuel type. In this test, the four flue gas constituents
(CO2, CO, O2 and NOx) were measured by the two analyzers. The two case
studies were carried out.
3.2.1 flue gas emissions under different boiler air intake amount
In the furnace chamber, the primary air supply comes from little holes of
the furnace base and the secondary air supply from the four vent tubes.
Variations of NOx, CO2, CO and O2 concentrations in the flue gas under 9
cases and their average values are tabulated in Table 1.

From the test results, primary air supply plays a dominant role in
combustion since it goes through the burning wood pellets. If the primary air
flow rate is increased, the more biomass fuel is burnt, the more NOx is
formed. However, CO2 and CO concentrations follow the opposite trend of O 2.
Although a part of CO2 comes from the conversion of CO, the excess air
dilutes CO2 and makes its concentration decrease as well, as shown in Table
1.
If the secondary air supply was shut up and only primary air supply
was remained for the 50 kW biomass boiler as the 25 kW biomass boiler did,
the tested flue gas emissions from the 50 kW biomass boiler were 64.11
ppmv for NOx, 13.02 vol% for CO2, 0.854 vol% for CO and 6.92 vol% for O2.

3.2.2 Flue gas emission comparisons under three kinds of vent tube
designs for 2nd air supply
With regard to the combustion efficiency, the factory-set secondary air
supply vent tubes are the most effective and combustion is the most
complete, since O2 concentration is the lowest, CO 2 the highest, NOx and CO
medium, as shown in Table 2.

3.3
Particle emissions:
Three types of biomass pellets, i.e., wood pellets, miscanthus pellets
and straw pellets, were combusted.
As expected, PM0.1-10 concentrations of the miscanthus pellets are
larger than those of wood pellets. However, all the particle concentrations for
straw pellet burning are larger than 150 mg/m 3 which are over the upper
limit of the DustTrak II handheld aerosol monitor. Therefore, the wood pellets
as biomass fuel is better than miscanthus and straw pellets due to their less
particle pollution and no blocky lava structure ashes. The use of straw
pellets in the residential heating sector is not recommended at present since
state-of-the-art pellet furnaces are not designed and unsuitable for straw
pellets.
The less the biomass boilers load is the less the PM 0.1-10 concentrations.
For instance, the tested PM0.1e10 concentration 29.6 mg/m3 was much less
than 72.7 mg/Nm3 since the biomass boiler were set at 35 kW instead of 45
kW.

4. Conclusions

For a 50 kW-rated biomass boiler, the gaseous emissions are 54.92

ppmv for NOx, 11.98 vol% for CO2, 0.24 vol% for CO and 8.19 vol% for O2
when the 1st and 2nd air supply for the furnace are factory-set.
Wood pellets combustion generates PM0.1e10 concentrations of 72.7
mg/m3 under the biomass boiler set at 45 kW and factory-set air supplies,
which is less than those of miscanthus and straw pellet combustions. In

addition, the ashes of wood pellet combustion are in the shape of powder
which doesnt obstruct the continuous burning.