2.

12

Ignition and
Combustion Reaction
Hisao Makino, Hirofumi Tsuji, and Ryoichi Kurose
Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Yokosuka,
Kanagawa, Japan

2.12.1

COMBUSTION PROFILE

Fuel Properties
There are many kinds of solid fuels, including coal, oil sand, oil shale, refuse fuel, and biomass, and coal
is the most abundant among these solid fuels. The most common and useful methods for analyzing these
solid fuels are the proximate and ultimate analyses.
Proximate analysis is used to quantify the amounts of moisture, volatile matter, fixed carbon,
and ash contents. The amounts of moisture and volatile matter contents of a sample of solid fuel are
evaluated by measuring the weight losses in air at 107 2C for 1 h and in an inert gas at 900 20C
for 7 min., respectively. The amount of fixed carbon content is supposed to correspond to the weight
loss after further heating in air at 815 10C for 1 h, and the residual is regarded as ash. Thus, the
dried sample consists of combustible matter and ash, and the combustible matter comprises volatile
matter, which easily volatilizes to the gas phase, and fixed carbon, which remains in the char even at
high temperature.
On the other hand, the major elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur
in solid fuels are evaluated using ultimate analysis. In general, ultimate analysis is roughly related
to proximate analysis: for example, coals with high fixed carbon content contain much carbon,
and coals with high volatile matter content contain much hydrogen (see Table 12.1).

Combustion Process of Solid Fuel

Figure 12.12 shows a schematic of the typical coal combustion processes on pulverized coal, which is
one of the most common methods for burning solid fuels. The combustion processes are as follows:
(1) moisture in solid fuels is immediately vaporized when solid fuels enter into a high-temperature
region in a furnace, (2) evolution of volatile matter (devolatilization) takes place, (3) the volatilized
gas is ignited and volatile combustion occurs, (4) char combustion (combustion of fixed carbon) follows the volatile combustion, (5) the combustion is terminated (a piece of the fixed carbon remains
in the ash).

2.12.2

DEVOLATILIZATION AND IGNITION

The combustion of solid fuels begins by the ignition of volatilized gas after the evolution of volatile matter takes place in a high-temperature region. Although the devolatilization is believed to
finish in about 100 ms, it is very difficult to accurately understand the devolatilization mechanism
because devolatilization is an extremely complicated phenomenon. The devolatilization processes
are strongly affected by coal properties, temperature, gas compositions, and so on, and these

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TABLE 12.1

Analysis Results of Solid Fuels

High heating value*

kcal/kg

Coal A
7,270

Low heating value*2

kcal/kg

9,980

Moisture

wt%

Coal B
7,030

Refuse fuel*1

Biomass
(Australian
Bagasse)

6,750

52.7*2

44.053.0*2

Proximate analysis
2.4*2
1.1*2
3

11.6*

*2

9.5

4.030.0*3

Ash

wt%

12.2*

Volatile matter

wt%

29.1*3

34.1*3

75.087.0*4

wt%

54.3*

1.59

26.45*2

43.052.05*4

Fixed carbon
Fuel ratio

58.7*

2.02

Ultimate analysis
74.1*3
72.5*3

Carbon

wt%

Hydrogen

wt%

5.29*3

5.57*3

3.93*2

5.26.9*4

wt%

0.65*2

0.20.4*4

Nitrogen

1.54*

1.67*

Oxygen

wt%

6.5*

Total sulfur

wt%

0.34*3

0.32*3

wt%

Combustible sulfur

0.33*

8.4*

*2

40.852.0*4

0.08*2

0.020.11*4

16.21

0.31*

An example of Japanese refuse fuel in Japanese urban areas. Source: Makino, H. and Ito, S., J. Soc.
Powder Technol. Japan, 34, 247254, 1997.
2
Equilibrium moisture basis.
3
Dry basis.
4
Dry ash-free basis.

Preheating
zone

Flame zone
(Volatile combustion region)
1000~
1700

Particle temperature

Flame

Air
and
Pulverized coal

Burner

Post-Flame zone
(Char combustion region)

Volatile
matter

Char combustion
Air

Ignition

End point of
devolatilization

Start point of
Devolatilization
Sudden rise in particle temperature
(Radiative and convective heat transfer)
Particle heating
(Flame radiation)
Distance from burner

FIGURE 12.1 Combustion profile of a coal particle in pulverized coal combustion. [From
Tominaga, H., in Sangyou Nenshou Gijutsu, The Energy Conservation Center, Japan, 2000,
pp. 93100. With permission.]
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Ignition and Combustion Reaction

221

conditions change moment to moment in actual combustion fields. The devolatilization rate of
volatile matter is commonly modeled by a single-step Arrhenius reaction scheme,3 such as
dV
K v (V * V )
dt

(12.1)

E
K v Av exp v
RTp

(12.2)

where V* and V indicate the total volatile matter content in a solid fuel particle and volatilized mass
released from the particle, Tp the particle temperature, and R the universal gas constant. Kinematic
parameters of preexponential factor Av and activation energy Ev in Equation 12.2 are determined
experimentally.4 Besides, a two-step Arrhenius reaction scheme5 is also proposed to improve the
adaptability.
The definition of ignition temperature has not been explicitly settled yet, since the measurements of ignition temperature of solid fuels with complicated properties are very difficult. Typically,
the ignition temperature of brown coals, whose volatile matter content is relatively high, is about
250C, and that of anthracite, which is a low-volatile coal, is about 500C. The ignition temperature
of bituminous coals, which are generally used in pulverized coal combustion in Japanese coal-fired
thermal power plants, is 300400C.
For the solid fuels with nonvolatile matter, the ignition temperature is regarded as the temperature
at which the heat generated by the combustion on the surface of a solid fuel is beyond the heat loss
due to convection and radiation.

2.12.3

GASEOUS COMBUSTION

The combustion of the volatilized gas due to the evolution of volatile matter with combustion air takes
place in the gaseous phase. The simple model of gaseous combustion is as follows. The chemical
mechanism has two global reactions:
Ca H b Oc 0.5O2 aCO bH 2 O
CO O2 CO2

(12.3)

where CaHbOc is the volatilized fuel gas, and a, b, c, a, and b are governed by the coal property. The
gaseous combustion provided in Equation 12.3 is often calculated using the combination of the kinetics
and eddy dissipation models.6 Regarding the kinetics, the rate of reaction for reactants such as CaHbOc
is given as an Arrhenius expression:
Eg
d
e
Rg Ag exp
[ Reactant ] [O2 ]
RT

(12.4)

where [c] means the mol fractions of chemical species c.The values of the preexponential factor Ag,
activation energy Eg, and orders d and e are determined experimentally.7,8
Since the gaseous combustion between volatilized gas and combustion air is strongly affected by
the mixing of them, it should be discussed with flow behavior. The reaction rate of volatilized gas is
fast, but soot particles are formed under the condition that the mixing of volatilized gases and combustion air is not enough. Figure 12.2 9 shows the emission characteristics of fine particles of less than 1
m against the excess O2 concentration in the exhaust gas. As the excess O2 concentration decreases,
the concentration of particles of the order of 0.1 m, which are thought to be soot, increases.
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10 10

O 2 =6%
O 2 =4%
O 2 =3%

10 9

dn/dlogDp [number/cm3N]

10 8

10 7

10 6

10 5

10 4

10 3

0.001

0.01

0.1

10

100

Particle size [ m]
FIGURE 12.2 Emission characteristics of fine particles from pulverized coal combustion. [From Makino, H., J. Aerosol Research Japan, 4, 206210, 1989. With permission.]

2.12.4

SOLID COMBUSTION

The combustion of fixed carbon, which is often referred to as char, is explained. The char burning
rate is modeled calculated using Field et al.s model10:
K K
dC
c d Pg pDp 2
dt
Kc Kd
5.06 107 Tp Tg
Kd
2
Dp
E
K c Ac exp c
RTp

(12.5)

0.75

(12.6)

(12.7)

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where C is the char mass, K c and Kd are the chemical and diffusion rate coefficients, respectively, and
Pg is the partial pressure of oxygen in the bulk gas. This model is obtained under the assumption that
the char burning rate is controlled by both the chemical reaction rate and the diffusion rate of oxygen to
the surface of the char particle. The values of the kinematic parameters of the preexponential factor Ac
and activation energy Ec in Equation 12.7 are determined experimentally.4 It is considered that the char
burning rate is dominated by the chemical reaction rate at a temperature less than 1000C, whereas it
is dominated by the diffusion rate at higher temperatures.
The remaining particles consist of ash and char. If the particle temperature is higher than the
melting points of the particles, the particles become spherical due to the surface tension and solidify
again as the particle temperature decreases. The remaining combustible char is exhausted as pure char
particles or contained in ash particles.

REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Makino, H. and Ito, S., J. Soc. Powder Technol. Jpn., 34, 247254, 1997.
Tominaga, H., in Sangyou Nenshou Gijutsu, The Energy Conservation Center, Japan, 2000, pp. 93100.
Van Krevelen, D. W., Van Heerden, C., and Huntjens, F. J., Fuel, 30, 253258, 1951.
Kurose, R., Tsuji, H., and Makino, H., Fuel, 80, 14571465, 2001.
Kobayashi, H., Howard, J. B., and Sarofin, A. F., in Sixteenth Symposium (International) on Combustion,
The Combustion Institute, 1976, pp. 411425.
Magnussen, B. F. and Hjertager, B. W., in Sixteenth Symposium (International) on Combustion, The
Combustion Institute, 1976, pp. 719729.
Borman, G. L. and Ragland, K. W., in Combustion Engineering, McGraw-Hill, 1998, pp. 120122.
Kurose, R., Makino, H., and Suzuki, A., Fuel, 83, 693703, 2004.
Makino, H., J. Aerosol Res. Jpn., 4, 206210, 1989.
Field, M. A., Gill, D. W., Morgan, B. B., and Hawksley, P. G. W., The Combustion of Pulverised Coal,
British Coal Utilisation Research Association, Leatherhead, Surrey, 1967.

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