PO UTILISATION

Combustion of pyrolysis liquid has proved to be successful in heat production, but, depending on fuel quality, some problems could occur:

• handling and stability;
  
• start-up and shut-down;
  
• atomisation;
  
• emissions;
  
• co-firing with other fuels, although some success has been reported with emulsions;
  
• flame temperatures and patterns.

During the project, long duration tests of pyrolysis liquid combustion are carried out, including cycling to identify problems concerning material durability and deposit formation in valves, heaters, nozzles and burner retention heads and on boiler walls and monitoring of a emission levels.
The combustion system used is a previously modified system that has a nominal capacity ranging from about 300 - 500 kWth.
Emulsions based on PO are tested in small scale burners (20 - 50 kWth), the main items to be tested being the emission levels and the long term durability of the components.
Larger scale use of PO is carried out in a district heat boiler in Stockholm, Sweden. A 10 MWth boiler is used to study combustion characteristics of PO produced within the project in Finland.

Previous PO tests at Oilon in a 5 MWth test boiler