The ERA-NET Bioenergy project “FutureBioTec” aimed to provide a substantial contribution concerning the development of future low emission stoves and automated small and medium-scale biomass combustion systems ([lt]20 MWth) and therefore has the following overall objectives, which have been defined under consideration of the different states of development of the different combustion technologies and capacity ranges addressed. The project focused on the further development of wood stoves towards significantly decreased CO, OGC and PM emissions by primary measures (air staging and air distribution, grate design and implementation of automated process control systems), the improvement of automated furnaces in the residential and the small- to medium-scale ([lt]20 MWth) capacity range towards lower PM and NOx emissions by primary measures (extremely staged combustion, utilisation of additives and fuel blending concerning new biomass fuels), as well as the evaluation, development and optimisation of secondary measures for PM emission reduction in residential biomass combustion systems. This technology development was accompanied by techno-economic evaluations in order to proof that the new technologies are also economically competitive.
In detail the following objectives have been defined:
- Development of primary measures concerning PM, OGC and CO emission reduction for stoves (work package 1)
- Investigation of new designs (grate and air staging) and new control concepts for wood stoves.
- Development of guidelines for low emission wood stove design and control.
- Development of a “low emission operation manual” for wood stove users.
- Development of primary measures for PM and NOxemission reduction in automated furnaces (work package 2)
- Systematic evaluation of effects of different air staging strategies and excess air ratios on the NOx and PM emissions with a special focus on staged combustion. The influence of the following parameters have been systematically investigated during test runs at small-scale grate-fired biomass combustion plant: air staging (distribution between primary and secondary air), excess air ratio, furnace temperature and flue gas recirculation below and above the fuel bed
- Development and test of a low emission burner for pulverised fuels.
- Determination of the behaviour of the critical ash forming elements as a function of combustion conditions and fuel quality.
- Elucidate and determine the potential and suitability of using different additives and fuel blending for low PM emission utilisation.
- Compilation of a guideline for low emission combustion concepts
- Development of secondary measures for PM emission reduction in small-scale biomass combustion systems (work package 3)
- Compilation of the European state-of-the-art concerning particle precipitation devices for residential biomass combustion systems.
- Techno-economic evaluation of different particle precipitation devices for residential biomass combustion systems.
- Compilation of design and application guidelines for particle precipitation devices for residential biomass combustion systems.
- Development of a new technology for a condensing heat exchanger as device for combined heat recovery and particle precipitation based on thermophoretic and diffusiophoretic effects (work package 4)