Co-combustion Emission Control

Project Number 212

The project aims at the minimization of dioxins and furans produced during coal-solid wastes co-combustion, by using preventive techniques, i. e. primary measures of negligible cost. These measures include pre-combustion actions (e. g. addition of inexpensive dioxin preventing compounds in the raw fuel) and in-furnace actions (e. g. optimization of combustion conditions), in order to suppress the production of chlorinated hydrocarbons during the combustion process. The tasks of the proposed work include the study of the gas emissions during co-combustion of coal-solid waste mixtures in pilot and full scale combustors, the correlation of the emissions with the combustion conditions and the fuel properties, the determination of the optimum combustion conditions in order to achieve low emissions, the addition of special dioxin preventing compounds in the raw fuel before combustion, the effect of these compounds on the efficiency of the combustor and of the flue gas cleaning devices, and the investigation of the mechanisms of toxic compounds formation and prevention.

The project team includes five research groups: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, AUTH, Greece, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas Medioambientales y Tecnologicas, CIEMAT, Spain, GSF National Research Center for Human Health and Environment, Germany, VGB PowerTech, Germany, and Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute, Greece. The project duration will be 36 months and it is arranged in five main work phases. The budget amounts to 1,321,000 EUR (Project-No.: ECSC7220-PR108).

Significant environmental benefits are expected from the results of the proposed project regarding the decrease of combustion emissions and the development of alternative methods of solid waste treatment with low environmental impact. By inhibiting or preventing formation of toxic compounds the resulting flue gases and fly or bottom ash should not need additional treatment for toxics removal. The economic benefits which will arise from the proposed project include the development of a low cost methodology for the minimization of dioxins produced from combustion processes. The proposed method is expected to replace the currently used expensive and complicated flue gas cleaning devices. This methodology is expected to be directly applicable to the power generation industry. Furthermore, the expected methodology could be also applied in various dioxin producing industrial processes, such as incinerators of solid / hazardous wastes, manufacturing of pesticides, cement and steel production etc.