The evaluation of waste tyre pulverised fuel for NOx reduction by reburning

The combustion of coal for power generation will continue to play a major role in the future, however, this must be achieved using cleaner technologies than we use at present. Scrap tyre arisings in the UK are 400,000 tonnes per year amounting to 30 million tyres and in the EU as a whole, more than 2.5 million tonnes of tyres per year are scrapped. The recent EC Waste Landfill Directive (1999) sets a deadline for the banning of whole and shredded tyres from landfill sites by 2006. Consequently, there is an urgent need to find a mass disposal route for tyres. We describe, in this paper, a novel use for tyre rubber pulverised fuel in a NOx reburning process which may have an application in power station boilers. This method of disposal could represent a way of combining waste disposal, energy recovery and pollution control within one process. A preliminary study of micronised tyre combustion was undertaken to identify the suitable size ranges for application in NOx reduction by reburning. Tests were performed in a down-fired, pulverised fuel combustor (PFC) operating at about 80 kW. Superior combustion characteristics, i.e. burnout were achieved with particle sizes less than 250 μm. A South African coal was used as the primary fuel in the reburn tests and the tyre was fed pneumatically via a separate feed system. Parameters studied, were, reburn zone stoichiometry and reburn fuel fraction. Additionally, the carbon content of the ash was carefully monitored for any effect on burnout at the fuel rich reburn stoichiometries. The NOx reductions achieved with tyres are compared with reburning with coal. NOx reductions up to 80% were achieved with tyres at half of the reburn fuel feed rate required to achieve the same reductions by coal. The results have been evaluated within the context of other studies available in the literature on NOx reburning by bituminous coal, brown coal, gas and biomass.