Thermogravimetric investigation on characteristic of biomass combustion under the effect of organic calcium compounds

• Thermal behavior of organic calcium compounds and its blended fuels were studied.
• Co-burning was controlled by OCCs’ additive amount and its volatile matter contents.
• Combustion performance indexes decrease with increases of Ca/S ratio.
• OCCs improve most biomass burning, and co-burning of OCCs and biomass is feasible.

Experiments were conducted in a thermogravimetric analyzer to investigate thermal behavior of different organic calcium compounds (OCCs) and its blended fuels with three kinds of biomass. The effectiveness of synthesized method for OCC was assessed by the pyrolysis test. Effect of the mole ratio of calcium to sulfur on co-combustion characteristics was studied. Results indicated that preparation method of modified calcium acetate (MCA) had high precision and accuracy. Co-combustion characteristic of OCCs blended with biomass was controlled by OCCs’ additive amount and the content of volatile matter which is mainly composed of small hydrocarbon molecules. Combustion performance indexes for peanut shell and wheat straw impregnated by OCCs were improved, however, an inverse trend was found for rice husk because of lower additive amount of OCCs. The blended fuel show higher combustion performance indexes compared with combustion of individual biomass, and these indexes decrease with increases of Ca/S ratio.