EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Coal–biomass co-combustion: An overview

S.G. Sahu, N. Chakraborty and P. Sarkar

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2014, vol. 39, issue C, 575-586

Abstract: The energy sector in the global scenario faces a major challenge of providing energy at an affordable cost and simultaneously protecting the environment. The energy mix globally is primarily dominated by fossil fuels, coal being the major contributor. Increasing concerns on the adverse effect of the emissions arising from coal conversion technologies on the environment and the gradual depletion of the fossil fuel reserves had led to global initiatives on using renewables and other opportunity resources to meet the future energy demands in a sustainable manner. Use of coal with biomass as a supplementary fuel in the combustion or gasification based processes is a viable technological option for reducing the harmful emissions. Co-combustion of coal with biomass for electricity generation is gradually gaining ground in spite of the fact that their combustion behavior differ widely due to wide variations in their physical and chemical properties. This article deals with the technical aspects of co-combustion with emphasis on the fundamentals of devolatilization, ignition, burnout and ash deposition behavior along with the constraints and uncertainties associated with the use of different types of biomass of diverse characteristics and the likely impact of partial replacement of coal by biomass on the emission of CO2, SOx, NOx. Other issues of no less importance like sustained availability of biomass, transportation and storage, effect on biodiversity, etc., are left out in the study. The investigations reported in the study reflect the potential of biomass as co-fuel, and the scope of maximizing its proportion in the blend in the coal based power plants and the derived benefits.

Keywords: Co-combustion; Coal; Biomass; Co-fuel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114005589
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:39:y:2014:i:c:p:575-586

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2014.07.106

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:39:y:2014:i:c:p:575-586