Investigation of Synergistic Activity During the Co-Pyrolysis of Coal and Biomass.

Completed

Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Coal, Coal combustion)
Renewable Energy Sources(Bio-Energy, Applications for heat and electricity)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr JM Jones
Energy Resources Research Unit
University of Leeds

Standard

EPSRC

01 July 2003

30 September 2006

39 months

£189,327

Mechanical engineering

Yorkshire & Humberside

Chemical Engineering Responsive -- Process Environment and Sustainability

Dr JM Jones, Energy Resources Research Unit, University of Leeds

Professor K Bartle, Sch of Chemistry, University of Leeds
Professor A Williams, Energy Resources Research Unit, University of Leeds

As recognised in the EPSRC "SUPERGEN INITIATIVE", the energy supply in the UK will need to undergo a significant change over the next few decades. Fossil fuel depletion and environmental concerns are two of the drivers for this change. In particular, the emphasis will be on sustainable resources for both power generation and possibly chemicals production. Biomass is one possible sustainable resource that is expected to contribute increasingly to this. It is inevitable that biomass willsupplement fossil fuels, especially coal in the first instance, and coal-biomass blending in combustion is already a topic of great interest. One scenario is a distributed energy supply using small systems which can cope with diverse feedstocks and which may use flexible process and product options (E.g. gasification/pyrolysis for fuels and chemicals or for power generation). Therefore, there is a need for fundamental data on the interaction of fuel blends during these processes so that theycan be optimised for particular applications. The co-utilisation of coal and biomass for energy production results in pollutant reduction, and for NOx and SOx reduction this can be explained. However, little is understood about the interaction of the volatiles and the resulting decrease in oganic emissions. The proposed work seeks to extend our understanding of this through the development and application of a new technique, complemented with an established procedure applied to this novel problem. It will explore recent findings concerning the synergy in co-pyrolysis of coal and biomass, and whether this synergy can be tailored to be beneficial in different thermal processes through different fuel blending strategies

01/01/07