Characterization and integration of oxidation catalysts at small-scale biomass combustion furnaces

Small-scale biomass combustion is a major part in heat supply from renewable resources. Drawbacks to the environmental background are the pollutant emissions, which are formed as a result of maloperation, suboptimal furnace construction or the biomass fuel composition. The named primary factors can be influenced by several measures, but the achievable emission results are limited. To provide real clean combustion technology with nearly zero pollutant emissions, secondary emission reduction measures are necessary. One of these measures is the application of catalytic flue gas cleaning as integrated or downstream solution. Catalysis is already a state of the art element in many processes and following this, some studies reveal already its potential to reduce CO, VOC as well as particle emissions in small-scale biomass combustion systems. However, a wide application of catalysts in wood combustion units didn’t take place so far, because the challenging process conditions demand a proper integration and highly stable and active catalytic materials. For the achievement of well-functioning combustion systems with catalyst solutions a procedure for application-oriented characterization is presented. Initial investigations with commercially available catalysts have shown that the gas hourly space velocity and the oxygen content have the most significant influence on the conversion rate of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. Two samples with different active phases have been compared, one with solely metal oxides and one with metal oxides and noble metals. The one with noble metals showed as expected a higher activity, but also a higher stability