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A sustainable approach to the recycling of rice straw through pelletization and controlled burning

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Abstract

A technique for controlled burning of rice straw is presented. It relies on well-designed rice straw pellets to be burned in fluidized bed. The developed pellets have high burning rate, no fly ashes emissions and minimum bed fouling. The pellets are manufactured from ground rice straw in a disc pelletizer with the aid of bonding and suitable additive materials. The pellets are tested under controlled conditions in a test rig, which represents a single pellet fluidized bed. It is equipped with a nitrogen gun to eject the pellet and freeze the reaction at any predetermined time during combustion. The ejected pellets are weighed as well as elementary analyzed for both carbon and hydrogen, to calculate the burning rate as well as the combustion efficiency, respectively. The effect of several parameters has been evaluated including straw particle size, pellet size, type and concentration of bonding material as well as anti-sintering additives. Also, the pellets’ mechanical characteristics have been evaluated. It has been found that char combustion phase represents the controlling phase of the pellet combustion. The burning rate is higher as the void fraction of the pellet is higher. Starch showed better combustion and mechanical characteristics out of the five tested bonding materials. Adding kaolin to the pellets results in improving the sintering characteristics of the pellets. The experimental results were compared with two combustion models: the oxygen diffusion controlled and the kinetic-diffusion models. It has been found that oxygen diffusion controlled model more accurately simulates the combustion of the pellet during its char combustion phase. The model has been used to evaluate the effect of some operational parameters on the pellet combustion characteristics such as bed temperature, gas flow and oxygen concentration.

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Abbreviations

A :

surface area of char particle (m2)

C :

concentration (kg/m3)

C fix :

fraction of fixed carbon

D :

diffusion coefficient (m2/s)

d :

diameter (m)

K app :

apparent combustion rate (m/s)

K s :

chemical reaction rate constant (m/s)

M :

molecular mass

m :

mass

m c :

mass flux from boundary layer diffusion (kg/m2 s)

S :

stoichiometric coefficient

Sh :

Sherwood number

T :

temperature

t :

time (s)

Y :

mole fraction of oxygen

ζ :

void fraction

ρ :

density

γ :

factor equal to (Ψ−1)/(Ψ+1)

Ψ :

carbon fraction converted to CO2 for each mole of carbon consumed

Γ :

oxygen stoichiometric coefficient for each mole of carbon

β :

mass transfer coefficient

α :

convection heat transfer coefficient

ΔH :

heat of reaction (J/kg O2)

0:

initial

ABF:

at boundary layer film

app:

apparent

b:

bed

c:

carbon

cc:

char combustion

g:

gas

o2 :

oxygen

p:

pellet

s:

solid, surface

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

    K. T. Ewida, N. N. Atta & M. M. Mahmoud

  2. Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

    H. El-Salmawy

Authors
  1. K. T. Ewida
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  2. H. El-Salmawy
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  3. N. N. Atta
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  4. M. M. Mahmoud
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Correspondence to K. T. Ewida.

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Ewida, K.T., El-Salmawy, H., Atta, N.N. et al. A sustainable approach to the recycling of rice straw through pelletization and controlled burning. Clean Techn Environ Policy 8, 188–197 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-006-0043-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-006-0043-x

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