Effect Of Air Staging On Palm Shell Combustion In Fluidised Bed Incinerator

Abstract

The combustion of wastes and very low-grade fuels aims at obtaining thermal energy by subjecting them to heat treatment in order to destroy nitrogen oxide constituents or to convert the materials into a less inconvenient or even potentially usable form. For these purposes, a small pilot plant-scale bubbling fluidised bed incinerator was designed, constructed and tested. This incinerator has a heat capacity of around 26 - 30 kW. It was facilitated with refractory-lined combustion chamber of 0.15 m square cross section and a total height of 1.5 m. The agricultural wastes that have been incinerated in this fluidised bed facility was palm shell wastes. The waste was combusted over a bed temperature ranging from 780- 815°C. The use of air-staging technique of palm shell combustion test shows a reduction in the CO emission level. But, it results in a reduced combustion efficiency level due to high elutriation rate of carbon particles. The air-staging technique also effected the rise of NOx concentration level. Keyword: Fluidised bed incinerator, air-staging technique, palm shell combustion, combustion efficiency, flue gas emission