Co-firing of coal and cattle feedlot biomass (FB) Fuels, Part III: fouling results from a 500,000BTU/h pilot plant scale boiler burner

Part I of the paper presented a methodology for fuel collection, fuel characteristics of the FB, its relation to ration fed, and the change in fuel characteristics and volatile oxides due to composting. The bench scale experiments with 30 kWt (100,000 BTU/h) facility revealed better combustion for coal: FB blends (90:10) than for coal alone and the NOx emission were slightly less with the blend (Part II). Part III concerns with larger-scale (pilot plant) experiments conducted at the 150 kWt (150,0000 BTU/h) Combustion and Environmental Research Facility (CERF) of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Only fouling part of the results are reported in part III. The 90:10 coal:FB blend resulted in almost twice the ash output compared to coal and ash deposits on heat exchanger tubes that were more difficult to remove than baseline coal ash deposits. The increased fouling behavior with blend is probably due to the higher ash loading and ash composition of FB.