Application of Biomass Smoldering for Rural Building Heating in China: Strengths and Challenges

Biomass smoldering for rural building heating could be a potential choice for bioenergy utilization in China to reduce the pollution caused by agroresidues open burning and to satisfy the increased demand of rural building heating. Its strengths include low pretreatment, transportation, and storage fees of fuel; ease of operation; good fertilizer characteristics of ash; use of latent heat of water vapor; pollution reduction; reduction of pests, weeds, and plant diseases on the farm; etc. However, controls of the burn rate and the gas emission are two challenges of the application, and related solutions of these challenges are discussed.