Ash melting behaviour and deposition in oxyfuel biomass combustion

Supervisors: Professor M Pourkashanian, Professor L Ma, Professor K Hughes

The combustion of biomass is proposed as a 'carbon neutral' alternative to fossil fuel utilisation and even a 'carbon negative' technology when combined with carbon capture and storage technologies such as oxyfuel combustion (Bio-CCS). Biomass contains significant amounts of alkali metals, which modify ash melting, slagging, fouling and deposition behaviour within power plant equipment.

This project will first investigate thermodynamically the ash melting behaviour of biomass/coal mixtures at oxyfuel conditions. The project will then focus on the chemical kinetic behaviour of alkali salts at oxyfuel conditions using kinetic modelling techniques such as chemkin. Finally the project will couple chemical kinetic models to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the prediction of ash deposition inside power plant equipment under bio-CCS conditions.

For further information contact Professor Derek B Ingham (d.ingham@sheffield.ac.uk).