Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Article Title: Study of Performance of an Atmospheric Bubbling Fluidized Bed Combustor Using Palm Kernel Shell
by Nordiana O. Joseph, Ighodalo Osagie and Obodeh Otunuya

Abstract:
An experimental investigation was made to study the performance of an atmospheric bubbling fluidized bed combustor using palm kernel shell (PKS) as fuel. The combustion chamber is a steel cylinder with 145mm internal diameter and 2400mm height. During the combustion test, the fuel was burnt at 7.32kg/hr and 9.96kg/hr fuel feed rates while ranging excess air from 20% to 100% for each combustor load. Tests results showed that for the fuel feed rates of 7.32kg/hr and 9.96kg/hr, maximum combustion efficiencies of 98.7% and 97.3% respectively at 80% excess air were attained. This is an improvement of 6.23% over the 92.47% limit previously established in the literature. The major gaseous (CO and NOx) emissions were at levels which were less than the U.K. environmental emission limits permitted for new fluidized bed combustor of biomass fuels. The results showed that PKS waste obtained from Nigeria can be successfully burnt in bubbling fluidized bed combustor. The combustor can thus be used for steam generation or other applications at very high combustion efficiency while maintaining low level of the major gaseous emissions.

Keywords: combustion efficiency, fluidized bed combustor, emissions, excess air, palm kernel shell

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