The influence of the elemental and structural chemical composition on the ash fusibility of sugarcane bagasse and sugarcane straw Articles uri icon

published in

publication date

  • November 2021

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 14

volume

  • 304

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0016-2361

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1873-7153

abstract

  • Agricultural residues have been pointed out as an important source to energy conversion by direct burning.
    Nevertheless, their use still faces operational problems, such as slagging and fouling, mainly related to the
    inorganic fraction of their composition. The objectives of this work were to understand the fusion behavior of
    sugarcane biomass ash formed during thermal conversion and the tendency of slag and fouling to occur, in
    addition to propose possible solutions to minimize these problems using a mixture of biomass species and/or
    additive minerals. To that end, experimental measurements and thermodynamic simulations were employed to
    relate the chemical composition to the fusibility. The ashes chemical composition was characterized by EDS and
    XRD, while the ash fusion temperatures AFT's (DT, ST, HT and FT) were measured by AF700 equipment and
    estimated using FactSage modeling. Statistical analysis helped to derive the relationship between chemical
    composition and AFT's. The ashes were rich in SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 and revealed that for bagasse the element
    that most contributes to increase DT is Si, whereas for straw the presence of Al has a stronger effect to increase
    DT. Fe was found to act as flux element. XRD results showed the phases differences, finding more amorphous
    components in straw ash than in bagasse, which may lead to a different ash fusion behavior. Straw 2015 ash
    presented a DT of 733ºC while for bagasse 2015 and 2016 ashes the values of DT were 777 and 917ºC,
    respectively. In contrast, the DT of straw ash increased when mixed with bagasse 2015 and 2016 to values of 841
    and 885ºC, respectively, and also when 1% of Al2O3 was added, obtaining a DT of 930ºC. For bagasse samples,
    the additives showed a minor effect on ash melting behavior.

subjects

  • Chemistry

keywords

  • biomass; mineral additives; renewable energy; sugarcane bagasse pellet; sugarcane straw pellet