Project: Development of an innovative centrifugal condensation scrubber
The project is aiming to optimize and demonstrate a techno-economic solution to efficiently reduce particulate matter emission, especially in the submicrometer range for medium scale biomass combustion boilers.
Project information
Project name
Development of an innovative centrifugal condensation scrubber for particulate matter emission reduction for medium scale biomass combustion plants via modelling and full-scale testing
Project manager
Leteng Lin
Other project members
Michael Strand, Wilhelm Johansson
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University, ITK Envifront AB, Enertech AB Osby Parca Division, Bioenergigruppen
Financier
The Knowledge Foundation Hög 2019
Timetable
1 May 2020–30 Apr 2023
Subject
Bioenergy technology (Department of Built Environment and Energy Technology, Faculty of Technology)
More about the project
Biomass is increasingly being used for energy purposes to replace fossil fuel. Advanced combustion systems for domestic heating, district heating, and cogeneration have helped Sweden towards a five-fold increase in the use of bioenergy since the 1980s.
Biomass combustion, however, generates substantial fine particle emissions to ambient air similar to coal combustion. Inhalation of wood smoke particles can cause severe human health problems. Stronger emission legislation in the EU is coming into force in 2025 when it comes to emissions from medium scale biomass boilers.
In Sweden, there are more than 3,000 existing biomass combustion plants facing the challenge from the new EU regulation. New technological approaches and concepts must to be developed and employed to reduce particles emission for all existing and new-built biomass-fired appliances.
The project aims to develop and test a new design of centrifugal water condensation scrubber (CWCS) for both particle removal and heat recovery via flue gas condensation. CWCS would potentially enhance particle removal partially by centrifugal force created by tangential gas acceleration, and partially by the controlled particle growth attributed to flue gas condensation on the existing ash particles.
The main approach includes theoretic CFD modeling, lab experiments and field measurements on the pilot system. Extensive field measurement matrix is planned for the pilot CWCS regarding the particle emissions, collection efficiency, and heat recovery under varied CWCS running and boiler operation conditions. Lab experiments will focus on the study of particle growth phenomena due to water condensation under super-saturated environment.
After the validation of the model by the experimental data, the model can be used further to re-design and optimize the CWCS operation to identify the optimal operation parameters for both satisfactory particle removal and heat recovery.
The project is part of the research in the Bioresource Technology research group.