Numerical study of co-firing pulverized coal and biomass inside a cement calciner

The use of waste wood biomass as fuel is increasingly gaining significance in the cement industry. The combustion of biomass and particularly co-firing of biomass and coal in existing pulverized-fuel burners still faces significant challenges. One possibility for the ex ante control and investigation of the co-firing process are computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical analysis of co-firing pulverized coal and biomass in a cement calciner. Numerical models of pulverized coal and biomass combustion were developed and implemented into a commercial CFD code FIRE, which was then used for the analysis. Three-dimensional geometry of a real industrial cement calciner was used for the analysis. Three different co-firing cases were analysed. The results obtained from this study can be used for assessing different co-firing cases, and for improving the understanding of the co-firing process inside the calculated calciner.