Biomass co-firing under oxy-fuel conditions: A computational fluid dynamics modelling study and experimental validation

•A CFD model was developed to describe coal and biomass blends combustion.•The model can be applied to both air–fuel and oxy-fuel conditions.•Sub-models developed for air–fuel combustion were adapted for oxy-fuel combustion.•A very good agreement between simulation results and experimental data was achieved.

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study on co-firing olive waste (0, 10%, 20% on mass basis) with two coals in an entrained flow reactor under three oxy-fuel conditions (21%O2/79%CO2, 30%O2/70%CO2 and 35%O2/65%CO2) and air–fuel condition. Co-firing biomass with coal was found to have favourable synergy effects in all the cases: it significantly improves the burnout and remarkably lowers NOx emissions. The reduced peak temperatures during co-firing can also help to mitigate deposition formation in real furnaces. Co-firing CO2-neutral biomass with coals under oxy-fuel conditions can achieve a below-zero CO2 emission if the released CO2 is captured and sequestered. The model-predicted burnout and gaseous emissions were compared against the experimental results. A very good agreement was observed, the differences in a range of ± 5–10% of the experimental values, which indicates the model can be used to aid in design and optimization of large-scale biomass co-firing under oxy-fuel conditions.