Co-firing sludge in a pulverized coal-fired utility boiler: Combustion characteristics and economic impacts

Peng Tan, Lun Ma, Ji Xia, Qingyan Fang, Cheng Zhang and Gang Chen

Energy, 2017, vol. 119, issue C, 392-399

Abstract: Co-incineration of sludge in the existing coal-fired utility boilers is a promising sludge disposal approach, but study on the combustion characteristics and the economic impacts of co-firing sludge in full-scale utility boilers is in absence. In this study, a series of full-scale field experiments and numerical experiments were conducted to study the coal-sludge co-combustion characteristic in a 100 MW coal-fired utility boiler. The effects of sludge blending ratio and moisture content in sludge are concerned. Subsequently, the economic impacts of co-firing sludge is presented. The results demonstrate that the combustion characteristics is acceptable when co-firing 10% sludge. The ignition property and the flame stability are significantly affected when the mass content of co-fired sludge is over 10%. Decreasing the moisture content in sludge is beneficial to the combustion characteristics but the improvements are limited. Co-firing sludge is profitable for power plants as the savings from coal and sludge disposal allowance is quite substantial. Considering both the combustion characteristics and the economic impacts, co-firing 10% sludge with moisture content ranging from 40% to 56% is optimal. The annual profit from co-firing sludge can reach 4.2 million to 5.5 million Chinese yuan (CNY), which is remarkable for the power plant.

Keywords: Sludge; Co-combustion; Combustion characteristic; Economic impacts; Coal-fired boiler (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:119:y:2017:i:c:p:392-399

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.12.084

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