Effects of Physical Characteristics of Biomass Feedstock on Their Combustion Behavior

There are many variations in size and shape of biomass feedstock, and the effects of feedstock physical properties on combustion behavior have not been studied thoroughly. A fundamental two-part study was conducted to systematically investigate the effects of feedstock size and shape on their combustion kinetics. The first part included experimental analysis of combustion behavior of samples with different thicknesses and surface areas, carried out in a modified thermogravimetric combustor. The second part involved developing a kinetic expression to predict the biomass weight change during different stages of combustion. Experimental results show that both sample thickness and surface area play an important role during combustion, and samples with smaller thicknesses and higher surface areas combust at higher rates. For the modeling part of this study, a shrinking core model was used to capture the weight change of a spherical piece of wood during the volatile and char burning stages.M.A.S