Secondary Solid
Fuels
Briquetting of solid
fuels
• Applying Pressure to a mass of particles with or without the
addition of a binder and converting it into an agglomerate.
• Products are called briquettes containing binders or binder
less briquettes.
• Briquetting Done because:
(i) to convert cheap and waste coal dust to lump fuel.
(ii) to use coal more effectively on the grate of furnace.
Saw dust, peat, lignite, coal fines etc. may all be briquetted
into lumps
Briquetting of solid fuels
Briquetting may be done as follows:
1. Without binder for sub-bituminous coal, lignite or peat.
2. With binder like pitch for bituminous, carbonaceous and anthracite
coals.
Other inorganic binders like sodium silicate, magnesium
oxychloride and lime silica may be used.
Cereal binders like starch and ground maize may also be used.
Inorganic binders are easy to use but will increase the ash content
when burned
• Briquetting is most widely used in case of lignites. Due to low
structural quality of lignite, considerable quantities are recovered as
fines during its mining.
• No binders are required in the briquetting of lignites.
• The briquetting of lignites involve grinding, drying and pressing. The
formation of a good briquette requires that the grains are of certain
uniform size and optimum moisture contents so that the particles can
approach very close to each other and allow cohesive forces to come
into play when an external pressure is applied.
• Briquetting bituminous coal without binder is difficult and much higher
pressures and finer grain sizes are required than in the case of lignites.
• Steps involved in the briquetting are
Drying and grinding the coal
Mixing with the binder
Heating the mixture
Pressing it into molds
Cooling the briquettes before final disposal.
• The pitch content is around 7- 8% of coal. Pressure is normally 150 kg/cm2.
Coke
• Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from
destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous
coal.
• Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous.
• Volatile constituents of the coal—including water, coal-gas,
and coal-tar—are driven off by baking in an airless furnace
or oven at high temperatures.
• This fuses together the fixed carbon and residual ash.
…Continued
• Coke is used as a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in a
blast furnace.
• Since smoke-producing constituents are driven off during the coking
of coal, coke forms a desirable fuel for stoves and furnaces in which
conditions are not suitable for the complete burning of bituminous coal
itself.
• Coke may be burned with little or no smoke under combustion
conditions, while bituminous coal would produce much smoke
…Continued
Two commercial processes are available:
1. Low temperature carbonization at about 600oC and
2. High temperature carbonization at temperatures above 900oC.
• Coal is heated in retorts. Evolves gases like carbon monoxide, methane,
unsaturated hydrocarbons, and hydrogen.
• Tar forms up to about 500-600oC.
• Coals for converting to coke must have carbon content from 83 to 90%.
• Coke is used in iron and steel industries (metallurgical coke), foundries, and as
a domestic (smokeless) fuel.
Bagasse
• Bagasse is the fibrous matter that
remains after sugarcane or sorghum
stalks are crushed to extract their juice.
• It is currently used as a biofuel and as a
renewable resource in the manufacture
of pulp and paper products and
building materials.
• For each 10 tonnes of sugarcane
crushed, a sugar factory produces
nearly 3 tonnes of wet bagasse.
…Continued
• Bagasse is often used as a primary fuel source for sugar mills; when
burned in quantity, it produces sufficient heat energy to supply all the
needs of a typical sugar mill.
• To this end, a secondary use for this waste product is in cogeneration,
the use of a fuel source to provide both heat energy, used in the mill,
and electricity, which is typically sold on to the consumer electricity
grid.
Rice Hulls/Husks
• Rice husks are the hard protecting coverings of grains of rice.
• In addition to protecting rice during the growing season, rice hulls can
be put to use as
• building material,
• fertilizer,
• insulation material,
• fuel.
Waste Material
• Disposal of waste material from dustbins is an important sanitary problem.
• Its destruction by burning can produce heat for steam generation.
• Waste can be converted into fuel from a variety of waste sources.
• Municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage, is used to produce
energy at waste-to-energy plants and at landfills.
Waste-to-energy (Municipal solid waste)
MSW contains
• Biomass, or biogenic (plant or animal products), materials such as paper,
cardboard, food waste, leaves, wood, and leather products
• Non-biomass combustible materials such as plastics and other synthetic
materials made from petroleum
• Non-combustible materials such as glass and metals
How waste-to-energy plants work
The process of generating electricity in a mass-burn waste-to-energy plant has seven
stages:
1. Waste is dumped from garbage trucks into a large pit.
2. A giant claw on a crane grabs waste and dumps it in a combustion chamber.
3. The waste (fuel) is burned, releasing heat.
4. The heat turns water into steam in a boiler.
5. The high-pressure steam turns the blades of a turbine generator to produce
electricity.
6. An air-pollution control system removes pollutants from the combustion
gas before it is released through a smoke stack.
7. Ash is collected from the boiler and the air pollution control system.
Advantages of solid fuels
• Easy storage
• High gross calorific value
• Low sulfur content
• Cheap, easy to handle and no complicated burning mechanism
• It can be pulverized
• Coal ash is free from vanadium compounds
Disadvantages of solid fuels
• Dust nuisance
• Laborious work required for its movement
• More space required for storage
• Coal deteriorates during storage
• Undergo spontaneous combustion during storage
• Ash trouble
• Thermal efficiency is not so high
