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Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

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Energy
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Drying of biomass for power generation: A case study on power


generation from empty fruit bunch
Ho Ting Luk a, Tsz Ying Gene Lam a, Adetoyese Olajire Oyedun a, Tesfaldet Gebreegziabher b,
Chi Wai Hui a, *
a
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
b
Department of Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Foreseeing a promising future of utilizing bio-energy, more and more small-scale biomass power plants
Received 7 March 2013 are recently built. Biomasses with high moisture content such as sludge or Empty Fruit Bunch are often
Received in revised form used as fuel in small-scale power plant without proper drying. These highly moist biomasses reduce the
12 October 2013
efficiency of the boiler but on the other hand drying the biofuel is also an energy intensive process. This
Accepted 16 October 2013
Available online 15 November 2013
paper aims to investigate how drying would affect the overall energy efficiency while proper heat
integration in between the drying and power plant is under consideration. A 12.5 MW biomass power
plant that burns EFB with 60 wt% moisture is used as a base case. Two types of dryer, Hot Air Dryer (HAD)
Keywords:
Drying
and Superheated Steam Dryer (SSD), are proposed for the drying process. These two dryers require heat
Biomass at different temperature levels to provide a better chance for heat integration. Material and energy
Power generation balance models of the dryers and boilers are derived in this paper and the steam power plant model is
Integration constructed in Aspen Plus. The results of this study show that with proper drying and heat integration,
Modeling the overall efficiency can be improved by more than 5%, when compared to process without drying.
Simulation Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction wood chips on the process behavior of Biocrate boiler technology.


Their study concluded that low moisture content permits higher
Utilization of biomass for power generation is well accepted but temperatures of the flue gas and fuel layer while high moisture
the investigation on moisture effects on overall energy efficiency is content decreases the overall conversion rate of the fuel. Drying
limited. Common moisture content in raw biomass like EFB is often serves as the first stage of any biomass pyrolysis and combustion
between 60 and 70 wt% [1] and this high moisture content greatly process and the isothermal and non-isothermal drying kinetics was
restricts the development of biofuel for direct combustion, gasifi- obtained by Chen et al. [8,9].
cation or pyrolysis [2e4]. In gasification or pyrolysis processes, the The concept of integrating biomass dryers with power genera-
highly moist biomass not only increases the energy consumption tion plants have been attempted by some researchers. Li et al. [10]
for dewatering, the large amount of water also promotes the evaluated a case study of the integration of a biomass drying pro-
endothermic water gas shift reaction [5]. As a result, the oxygen cess into a power generation plant. They used the low-grade wastes
consumption increases in order to maintain the system tempera- (the flue gas from the process or hot cooling water) to form the
ture. When biomass is used as fuel in a combustion process, the superheated steam which forms the potential heating source for
moisture reduces the lower heating value (LHV) of fuel due to the biomass drying. Cocco et al. [11] also evaluated the performance of a
increase of non-recoverable heat loss carried by the moist flue gas. small scale externally fired gas turbine fueled by residual biomass
The moisture in biofuel reduces the combustion efficiency, in- and integrated with a biomass dryer. The use of integrated biomass
creases pollutions and worsens plant operations [6]. Recently, dryer allows the efficiency of the turbine to be increased. The effect
Boriouchkine et al. [7] studied the effect of moisture content of of integrating drying process into a biomass power plant was
studied by Song et al. [12] where flue gas from the boiler plant was
used to dry the biomass feedstock and their result shows 3.1% in-
crease in overall efficiency. All these demonstrated that the inte-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ852 2358 7137; fax: þ852 2358 0054.
gration of the drying process with the power plant is beneficial. On
E-mail addresses: htluk@ust.hk (H.T. Luk), tyglam@ust.hk (T.Y.G. Lam),
keoyedun@ust.hk (A.O. Oyedun), tgaa@ust.hk (T. Gebreegziabher), kehui@ust.hk the other hand, drying itself is an energy intensive process.
(C.W. Hui). The optimal level of drying should be determined by a three-way

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.10.056
206 H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

Fig. 1. A simplified process flow diagram of the overall plant.

trade-off among boiler efficiency, dryers’ energy consumption, 2. Problem formulation


capital investment of the drying and boiler plant. This work in-
vestigates how energy usage for dryers would affect the boiler or The Malaysian Government is promoting the use of EFB as fuel for
overall energy efficiency. Capital investment of the plants is not small-scale power plant [16e18]. The base case of this study came
considered. from the 2012 EURECHA Student Contest Problem Competition of
which an EFB power plant is designed to generate 12.5 MW elec-
Biomass drying tricity output [19]. The source of EFB contains 60 wt% moisture and
will be dried to 10 wt% before combustion [20e23]. The objective of
Typically, raw biomass used for biofuel has moisture content of 60e the design is to determine the most energy efficient drying scheme
70 wt% [1]. Mechanical drying methods such as shredding, grinding, by properly integrating the drying and power generation systems.
pressing, filtering, centrifuging or a combination of these processes are
often applied to remove moisture level to around 50 wt%. Thermal 3. Overall energy efficiency
drying methods with direct heating (hot air dryer, HAD) or indirect
heating (superheated steam dryer, SSD) are often used to bring the Fig. 1 is a simplified process flow diagram of the overall process
moisture level to a lower level. For example, 3e5 wt% for dehydrated in which 280,000 tonnes/yr raw EFB with 60 wt% moisture is dried
food, 20e50 wt% for gasified feeds and 10e20 wt% for biofuel. and combusted to drive the steam power plant.
Intensive researches have been carried out to review the pros and The overall efficiency, hoverall , of the overall process is defined as
cons of different thermal drying methods. A mathematical model in Eq. (1)
that incorporates material and energy balances, heat transfer and . 
drying kinetics to determine the optimum drying level of biomass hoverall ¼ W mfuel  HHVfuel (1)
was developed by Gebreegziabher et al. [13]. Trivial attention was
paid to the strategies of drying with combinations of different drying
where W, mfuel and HHVfuel are the turbine power output (MW),
methods. Holmberg and Ahtila [14] showed an exploration toward
mass flow rate of EFB (kg/s) and the higher heating value of EFB
multi-stage drying process with air as the only drying medium. In
(MJ/kg) respectively. The study will follow the ASME standard for
their work, they focus more on minimizing drying costs and also
estimating boiler efficiency using the higher heating value (HHV) of
considered both capital and running costs in their drying costs
the fuel [24] instead of using the LHV in a lot of boiler studies. Using
analysis. They suggested utilizing steam to preheat air for drying at
the HHV in this study can better reflect the effects of moisture thus
multi-stage manner for lowering the overall drying cost but their
make the comparison easier and more consistent. The evaluation of
work did not discuss the effects or operation in the steam power
higher heating value of EFB will be demonstrated in the later
plant. A multi-stage adsorption drying for low temperature drying
section.
was proposed by Djaeni et al. [15]. They used zeolite and alumina
To take the steam cycle and combustion processes into account,
pillared clay for air dehumidification. They concluded that the en-
Eq. (1) is transformed to Eq. (2) by considering the terms steam
ergy efficiency of multi-stage adsorption dryers is significantly
cycle efficiency, hs and boiler efficiency, hb. The relationship be-
better than that of conventional condenser dryers.
tween the two efficiencies and the overall efficiency is expressed as
In this study, both drying and steam power plant are taken into
in Fig. 2.
account. Different drying options are compared in terms of the
overall energy efficiency of the integrated plant. Biomass being a W
high moisture content material is first dried mechanically and hoverall ¼
mfuel  HHVfuel
followed by a HAD and/or SSD. The HAD and SSD are operated at  " #
W mBFW ðHH  HC Þ
two different temperature levels requiring steams at different ¼ ¼ hS  hb (2)
pressure levels. The combination of SSD and HAD works like a mBFW ðHH  HC Þ mfuel  HHVfuel
multiple effects evaporator and thus reduces energy usage for the
drying. A biomass power plant that burns 280,000 tonnes/yr of EFB where mBFW , HC and HH are the mass flow rate of boiler feed water
as fuel is used to illustrate how this multi-stage drying process is (BFW) (kg/s), the specific enthalpy of BFW entering and leaving the
integrated with the power plant. boiler (kJ/kg) correspondingly.
H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215 207

Table 2
Estimation of the theoretical air to fuel ratio for EFB with 60 wt% moisture.

Component Composition Mass fraction Mass of Mass of O2/ Mass of air/


(j) xdry,j (wt%) in wet with O2/mass mass of EFB mass of EFB
ash xwet,j of j
(wt%)

C 51.08 19.50 2.667 0.520 2.231


H2 5.60 2.14 8.000 0.171 0.734
N2 0.64 0.24 2.286 0.006 0.024
S 0.19 0.07 1.000 0.001 0.003
O 42.05 16.05 1.000 0.160 0.689
Total: 0.537 2.303

to the boiler (mair,act) is estimated in Eq. (5) and the actual air to fuel
Fig. 2. Simplified process flow diagram of combustion and steam cycle system.
ratio (A/Fact) becomes 2.763.

The energy balance of the boiler is estimated by Eq. (3) of which mair;act ¼ mair;theo ð1 þ Aexcess Þ (5)
the energy loss from the flue gas is affected by the moisture content The mass balance of the combustion of raw EFB with 60 wt% MC
of the fuel. is shown in Table 3 and the procedure of the estimation is as
follows;
mBFW ðHH  HC Þ ¼ EBoiler ¼ mfuel  HHVfuel  Eflue (3)
First, the annual operation hour is assumed to be 8000 hours
where EBoiler (kW) is the heat utilized to heat up the BFW in boiler which corresponds to 35,000 kg/h EFB of 60% MC based on the EFB
and Eflue (kW) is the rate of heat loss in flue gas respectively. The composition in Table 1. Using Eqs. (6) and (7), the combustible in dry
temperature of the flue gas from the boiler has to be above the acid and ash free basis and the amount of ash were found to be
dew point of which moisture comes with the fuel and generated 13,359 kg/h and 641 kg/h respectively. From Eq. (5), the actual air
from the combustion leave the boiler as vapor. Increasing moisture consumption is fixed at 96,718.81kg/h and therefore, Nitrogen and
content in the fuel promotes heat loss Eflue. Oxygen are contributing 74,182kg/h and 22,536 kg/h respectively. In
the combustion, CaCO3 is added to remove SO2 as shown in Eq. (8)
and the amount of CaCO3 fed is 77.74 kg/h calculated with Eq. (9).
3.1. EFB combustion model
mdaf ¼ mfuel  ð1  MCÞ  ð1  xAsh Þ (6)
This section aims to determine the empirical formula of EFB
and its heating value for combustion. The composition of EFB was
estimated by averaging the literature data [25e28] and is mash ¼ mfuel  ð1  MCÞ  xAsh (7)
summarized in Table 1. The empirical formula of EFB is determined
as C3657H4810N39S5O2258K9Cl using the methods demonstrated by
Sun [29]. CaCO3 þ SO2 þ 0:5O2 /CaSO4 þ CO2 (8)
Assuming a complete combustion is conducted as in the
exothermic combustion reaction in Eq. (4). The theoretical amount  
of air can be determined through the indicated stoichiometric mCaCO3 ¼ mdaf =MWdaf  MWCaCO3  vi =vdaf (9)
relationships.
The next step is the determination of parameters that depend on
2C3657 H4810 N39 S5 O2258 K9 Cl þ 7549O2 /7314CO2 þ 4810H2 O the combustion reaction and SOx removal. Throughout the com-
bustion process, ash is assumed to be completely left at the ash
þ 78NO2 þ 10SO2 þ 18K þ 2Cl
stream and the K and Cl content in daf combustible as inert.
(4) Amount of K, Cl and the individual compound (except O2 and N2)
can be determined by Eq. (10). As part of the oxygen is consumed
The dry-air used in this study is assumed to contain oxygen and
during the SO2 removal process, mass of oxygen remaining requires
nitrogen of 21 mol% and 79 mol% respectively. This, at the same
the consideration of an extra term following Eq. (11). Nitrogen is
time, corresponds to a mass fraction of oxygen ðyO;air Þ of 23.3 wt%.
considered as inert and its amount is kept constant. The results of
Based on this assumption, the theoretical air to fuel ratio (A/Ftheo) of
the individual components were summarized in Table 3.
the combustion in Eq. (4) is at 2.303 theoretically and the estima-
tion is shown in Table 2. h . i
Excess air ensures a complete combustion but raises the energy mi;flue ¼ mdaf =MWdaf vdaf  vi  MWi (10)
loss in flue gas simultaneously. In this analysis, 20% excess air
(Aexcess) is assumed in all cases. Hence, the actual amount of air fed

Table 1
Ultimate analysis on the composition of EFB in weight percentage [25e28].

Ultimate analysis on EFB composition (wt% e dry basis) Ash

C H N S O K Cl

Sample Average 51.08 5.60 0.64 0.19 42.05 0.41 0.04 4.58
Number of mole of element in dry basis (mol/100g EFB) (nj) 4.26 5.60 0.045 0.0058 2.63 0.011 0.0012 e
Empirical Formula 3657 4810 39 5 2258 9 1 e
208 H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

Table 3 3.3. Heat loss in flue gas


Mass balance of EFB combustion of 60% moisture content.

Raw EFB Ash Flue gas The major energy loss of combustion process is the stack loss of
and air (kg/h) (kg/h) which flue gas after heat recovery leaves the combustion system at
feed (kg/h) a temperature above its acid dew point. In this study, the flue gas is
C3657 H4810 N39 S5 O2258 K9 Cl 13,359 e e assumed to leave the stack at 200  C with no condensate. The stack
Ash 641 641 e loss from flue gas is calculated by Eq. (15) by following the mass
K e 55 e
balance performed in Table 3 [33].
Cl e 6 e
N2 74,182 e 74,182 2 3
e ZTflue
6X
O2 22,536 3744
7
mj;flue Cp;j dT 5 þ mw DHvap
e e ig
CO2 25,053 Eflue ðMWÞ ¼ 4 (15)
NO2 e e 279
SO2 e e e T ambient
H2O 21,000 e 27,731
CaCO3 77.74 e e The heat loss from the stack contains two parts, sensible heat
CaSO4 e 105.73 e and latent heat. The more the moisture content within the fuel, the
Total mass flow (kg/h) 131,797 807 130,989 greater the heat loss on both parts, in particular the heat due to the
condensation of water vapor. In Eq. (15), the specific heat of indi-
vidual species in flue gas is a function of temperature as shown in
h . i Eq. (16). The parameters used in this equation are listed in Table 4
mO2 ;flue ¼ mair;act  yO;air  mdaf =MWdaf vdaf and they are valid below a maximum temperature of 2000 K.
 vSO2  (11)
 vO2  MWi þ  MWO2 ig
Cp;air
2
¼ A þ BT þ CT2 þ DT2 (16)
R
Since the feed moisture content is high (60 wt%), the boiler ef-
3.2. Heat value of EFB
ficiency of the base case is estimated at 59.54%, which is in a very
similar level as estimated by Bruce and Sinclair [34].
In this section, the evaluation of higher heating value of
a particular fuel is demonstrated. The higher heating value
of EFB (HHVdaf) in dry and ash free basis in MJ/kg can be 3.4. Modeling of steam cycle
estimated by means of Dulong’s formula [30] as represented in
Eq. (12). The steam power plant is modeled as standard Rankine cycle
[33] and the simplified process flow diagram of a Rankine cycle is
HHVdaf ¼ ð33:7xC þ141:9ðxH xO =8Þþ9:3xS þ2:3xN Þ showed in Fig. 3. The cycle includes a boiler, a steam turbine, a
(12) condenser and a BFW pump. The thermal efficiency of steam power
plant is defined as the ratio of work produced to the heat input to
Eq. (13) is then used to determine the specific enthalpy which the boiler as described in Eq. (17).
can be generated by fuel possessing certain moisture content.
hs ¼ Net work output=Heat to the boiler ¼ W=EBoiler (17)
HHVfuel ¼ HHVdaf ð1  MC  xAsh Þ (13)
The EBoiler is calculated with Eq. (3). The steam power plant is
Based on Eqs. (12) and (13), HHVdaf and HHVfuel of EFB with simulated with ASPEN plus (A process simulation of Aspen Tech
60 wt% moisture content are found to be 17.7 MJ/kg and 6.77 MJ/kg Inc.). By setting proper pressure and temperature of the process
respectively. However, Dulong’s formula is generally valid only streams and the efficiency of the pump and turbine, the power
when oxygen content of fuel is less than 10% [31]. The high oxygen output W is estimated. The conditions and simulation details of the
content of EFB (about 40%) introduces deviation of the model from steam power plant are discussed in Section 4.
the actual value and a new model based on Thornton’s equation is
found to be more accurate for biomass [32] and it is represented by 3.4.1. Dryer model
Eq. (14). Mechanical drying. Mechanical drying requires equipment such as
  filter beds, pressers and centrifuges [23] and is considered if the
4C O
HHVT ¼ Qo þH (14) feed moisture content is above 50 wt%. The average power con-
12 8 sumption of the mechanical unit was assumed to be 0.310 kW h/
kg water removed by referring to company information [18]. In
where HHVT and Qo are the heat of combustion (kcal/g) and the
this study, we assumed that the moisture content is reduced
heat of reaction per equivalent of available electrons transferred to
mechanically from 60 wt% to 48 wt% and followed by thermal
oxygen (kcal/equiv. available electrons) respectively. While C, H and
drying.
O are representing the weight fraction of Carbon, Hydrogen and
Oxygen content.
Generally for wood and wood materials, the average value of Table 4
Qo ¼27.23 kcal/equiv. a.e, is normally used [32] and same value Constants for specific heat capacities of flue gas components in Eq. (16).
is used to calculate the heat of combustion for EFB. Therefore Chemical Species A B C D
using the Thornton’s equation, the heat of combustion of EFB in
N2(g) 3.280 0.000593 e 4000
dry and ash free basis and 60 wt% moisture content are found to NO2(g) 4.982 0.001195 e e79.200
be 19.79 MJ/kg and 7.55 MJ/kg respectively. These values are SO2(g) 5.699 0.000801 e e101.500
larger than the estimations from Dulong’s formula. Therefore CO2(g) 5.457 0.001045 e e115,700
for all the case studies considered, Thornton’s equation was H2O(g) 3.470 0.001450 e 12,100
O2(g) 3.639 0.000506 e 22,700
used.
H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215 209

to be 4.186 kJ/kg K and 1.40 kJ/kg K respectively. If the temperature


of hot air entering the HAD is assumed at 100  C and leaving the
HAD at 10  C above the EFB preheated temperature (Tf þ 10)  C, the
heat that released from the hot air is estimated with Eq. (23).
h      i.
Q1 ¼ mw;EFB Cp;w Tf Ti þ mdaf þmash Cp;EFB Tf Ti 1000
(20)

h    i.
Q2 ¼ mw;evp Cp;w Tf þ 10  Ti þ DHvap 10 (21)

QHAD ¼ Q1 þ Q2 (22)

Where Cp,w, Cp,EFB and DHvap are the specific heat capacity of water
Fig. 3. Rankine cycle.
and EFB and the latent heat of vaporization of water respectively.
On the other hand, the heat for the drying is supplied by the hot
air that is cooled from 100  C to a temperature that is 10  C higher
Thermal drying. Thermal drying is often used after mechanical than the outlet temperature of the solid stream (Tf). This duty is
drying to further reduce moisture content to a lower level. During calculated in Eq. (23).
thermal drying, moisture is vaporized and removed from the fuel.
This study will apply a Hot air dryer (HAD) and/or Superheated " f þ10
TZ #,
ig
Steam Dryer (SSD) as they are the most common type of thermal QHAD ¼ mHADair Cp;air dT 1000 (23)
dryers. T ¼ 100  C

3.4.2. Hot air dryer Up to this stage, both the mass flow rate of hot air and the final
In HAD, hot air is used as the drying medium for removing temperature are unknown. An extra equation is required to specify
moisture from the feed. In this study as illustrated in Fig. 4, air at the condition and the Antoine’s equation, Eq. (24) was employed to
temperature of 30 C and relative humidity of 80% with a rate of determine the mass ratio of water vapor to air (X). The Antoine’s
mHAD,air is heated by a heat source (e.g. low pressure steam) to a constants A, B and C values are 8.07131, 1730.63 and 233.426
high temperature (Tair,hot) of 100 C for drying. respectively [35]. Assuming the wet air leaving the HAD is of 100%
relative humidity, a fourth order polynomial relating temperature
Mass and energy balance. Given that the mdaf, mash and MCi are and the mass ratio of water vapor to air (X) is developed according
known, the mass of water evaporated (mw,evp) and remaining to Eq. (25).
moisture in dried EFB (mw,EFB) can be calculated by Eq. (18) and the
corresponding (MCf ) is then obtained with Eq. (19):
B
log Pw ¼ A  (24)
CþT
 
mw;evp ¼ mdaf þ mash MCi =ð1  MCi Þ  mw;EFB (18) where Pw is the saturated pressure of water and A, B and C are
Antoine vapor pressure constants.
       
mw;EFB ¼ mdaf þ mash MCf = 1  MCf (19) X ¼ 2:0317  107 T 4  3:5817  105 T 3 þ 0:002376T 2
 0:066318T þ 0:6755
The heat that is used for the HAD (Qtot,HAD) is calculated in Eq.
(22) which consists of the sensible heat (Q1 estimated in Eq. (20)) (25)
and latent heat of water (Q2 in Eq. (21)). These two components
In the air heater, the heat require to heat up the air from ambient
depend on the initial (Ti) and final temperature (Tf) of the EFB feed.
temperature to 100  C is calculated in Eq. (26).
Assume that the specific heat capacity of water and EFB in dry basis
2 3
T ¼Z100 C

,
6 ig 7
Q AirHeater ¼ 4 mHADair Cp;air dT 5 1000 (26)

T ¼ 32 C
ig
The Cp;airof air is a function of temperature and is estimated
using Eq. (16) by given the mass fraction of gas components and the
amount of water vapor in the ambient air. Eqs. (18)e(26) are solved
iteratively to converge the amount of water to be vaporize (mw,evp)
and the final temperature of EFB (Tf). The heat duty of the air heater
(QAirHeater ) is supplied by LP and the amount of LP will be deter-
mined when the power plant is simulated with the process
simulator.

3.4.3. Superheated steam dryer


A superheated steam dryer uses a higher temperature heat
sources such a medium pressure steam to operate. Heat is trans-
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of hot air dryer (HAD). ferred to the dryer indirectly. The moisture with the feed is
210 H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

vaporized at a superheat condition inside the dryer. The operating simulating the steam power plant. Fig. 7 shows the simulated
conditions of the steam are 18 bar, 307  C with specific enthalpy of flowsheet of the steam power plant using Aspen Plus of which the
3044.48 kJ/kg. The steam condensed after drying leaves at 200  C at duties of HAD, SSD and the boiler are input. The red and blue colors
18 bar with specific enthalpy of 852.47 kJ/kg. The condensate will in Fig. 7 indicates HAD and SSD respectively.
return and mix with the BFW for preheating. In the case study of
integrating SSD as the only drying unit, the change in moisture 4.1. Case 1 (base case) e direct combustion without drying
content is fixed to allow the determination of heat duty of the su-
perheated steam dryer. The following equations describe the mass In the base case, 35,000 kg/h EFB with 60 wt% moisture is fed
and energy balances of the superheated steam dryer. directly to the boiler for combustion. Using the combustion
As illustrated in Fig. 5, SSD processes wet feed of 48 wt% model derived from Section 3, Eq. (14), it can be estimated that
moisture content at 307  C to produce condensed steam at 200  C the wet EFB carries a HHV of 7.55 MJ/kg. The theoretical air to
and dried feed at 150  C with moisture content of 10 wt%. fuel ratio is at 2.303 according to results shown in Table 3. With a
20% excess air for the combustion applied to all cases, the actual
Mass balance. With the provision of ash content and the moisture air to fuel ratio in this study is 2.763 and correspond to 96,719 kg
content of incoming fuel, the mass balance on water removal is the air/h. For the base case, the entire colored streams in Fig. 7 are
same as that of HAD following Eqs. (18) and (19). neglected.
Based on the energy balance of the boiler, the total energy
Energy balance. Additional specifications are made regards to the flow of the fresh EFB is 264,335.99 MJ/h. Therefore the overall
energy balance: the outlet temperature of EFB is assumed to be heat generated by the combustion is 73.43 MW. By assuming the
150  C and moisture content of 10%. The mass balance of water, dry stack temperature at 200  C, the stack loss is estimated as
mass and the energy balance of the dryer are given in Eqs. (27)e 21.462 MW and the rest 47.66 MW are used for HP steam gen-
(29) respectively. eration at the boiler. The thermal efficiency of the boiler is
h h   i therefore 64.90%.
QSSD;W ¼ mw;evp Cp;w Tf  Ti þ DHvap As shown in Fig. 7, BFW at 100 bar 205  C is heated at the
 i. boiler isobarically to 500  C. The enthalpy change of this stream
þ mw;EFB Cp;w Tf  Ti 1000 (27) is 2485 kJ/kg resulting into a HP steam flow rate of 15.75 kg/s
from the boiler. The new power output of the steam power plant
   . is 13.02 MW simulated from ASPEN plus and the efficiency of the
QSSD;EFB ¼ mdaf þ mash Cp;EFB Tf  Ti 1000 (28) steam power plant is at 33.23%. This overall energy efficiency
(hoverall) defined in Eq. (2) is at 21.56% that is much lower than a
QSSD ¼ QSSD;EFB þ QSSD;W (29) conventional coal fired power plant at 33% [36].

The amount of LP usage will be determined by when the power 4.2. Case 2 e integration of hot air dryer into overall power
plant is simulated. generation

In Case 2, EFB is firstly dried by mechanical drying from initial


4. Case study
moisture content of 60 wt% to 48 wt% [23] and is followed by HAD
to further reduce the moisture content to an optimal value of 10 wt
Several case studies will be presented in this section. The base
% before combustion [20e22]. For case 2, red colored stream is only
case assumes direct combustion of biomass at 60 wt% moisture. The
considered in Fig. 7.
other cases will apply mechanical drying to reduce moisture con-
After the mechanical drying, the EFB is fed into the HAD at a rate
tent of raw EFB from 60 wt% to 48 wt% and then thermally dried to
of 26,923kg/h. The amount of water remaining in the EFB after
10 wt% with a combination of HAD and SSD before sending for
drying by HAD is 1555.56 kg/h and therefore the mass of water
combustion.
removed through this process is 11,368 kg/h. Based on the specific
An overall schematic diagram of the overall process is given in
heat capacity of water and EFB and also the known heat of vapor-
Fig. 6 of which dried EFB is burned in a Boiler producing Flue Gas,
ization of water being 2357.62 MJ/kg, a total heat of 8.46 MW is
High Pressure Steam (HP) and Ash. The HP is used for driving a
required to dry the moist EFB and preheat it to 28.78  C. The mass
steam turbine for power generation. Medium Pressure Steam (MP)
flow rate of hot air consumed for the drying is found to be
and Low Pressure Steam (LP) are extracted from the turbine for
465,803 kg/h and the ultimate wet air leaves the dryer at 38.78  C.
preheating BFW and EFB drying. The Very Low Pressure steam
Since the air extracted from atmosphere is at 32 C, the heat
(VLP) is extracted and condensed at the condenser before recycling
extracted from low-pressure steam to preheat hot air to 100  C is
back to the BFW system.
9.04 MW.
The duties of HAD (QAirHeater ) and SSD (QSSD ) are calculated as
Reduction of moisture content in EFB to 10% raises its HHV
described in previous sections. These duties will be supplied for
significantly to 17.81 MJ/kg. Since the amount of combustible is the
same in all case, the air consumption is the same as the base case
and the mass balance of the boiler is summarized in Table 5.
Due to the drying processes applied, the stack loss is reduced to
8.24 MW and leads to a boiler efficiency of 85.93%. The HP gener-
ation rate is thus increased to 26.61 kg/s. The energy balance of EFB
power generation using HAD is shown in Table 6.
By specifying heat duty of HAD into the ASPEN simulation as
shown in Fig. 7 (red), the steam cycle efficiency and the overall
energy efficiency are found to be 30.24% and 25.99%. (For inter-
pretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of superheated steam dryer (SSD). is referred to the web version of this article.)
H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215 211

Fig. 6. Schematic of overall process with the two dryers, boilers and turbines.

4.3. Case study 3 e integration of superheat steam dryer into (10%). The waste steam produced during the SSD drying process is
overall power generation used to preheat the hot air for drying in this case. This arrangement
can thus act as a double effect dryer and utilize the heat in a greater
As in the previous case, instead of a HAD, a SSD is used for drying extent [37]. For this case, all the colored streams are considered in
the EFB to 10 wt% moisture. In this case, blue colored stream is only Fig. 7.
considered and the MP steam is used for heating the SSD as shown To demonstrate the feasibility of this idea, an evaluation of
in Fig. 7. The condensate of MP after the SSD drying returns back to overall efficiency is performed. As the ultimate moisture content
the BFW system. and final temperature of EFB are the same as the case in SSD, the
Since the ultimate moisture content of EFB is kept at 10% for HHV of fuel and energy consumption by preheating the com-
combustion, the HHV of the wet EFB is the same as case study 2 to bustion air are the same as in case 3. As a result, this gives a
be 17.81 MJ/kg. The mass balance of boiler in this case study is same boiler efficiency of 90%. Since the overall drying system of this
as the one shown in Table 6. Since the dried EFB leaves the SSD idea consists of two dryers, the selection of intermediate mois-
system at a higher temperature than HAD at 150  C, the stack loss is ture content affects the heat duty of each dryer significantly. A
thus reduced from 8.239 MW in the case of HAD to 6.761 MW. This sensitivity analysis on the effect of moisture content on the
increases the boiler efficiency to 86.72%. The energy balance in this steam cycle efficiency is done to find the maximum steam cycle
case is summarized in Table 7. efficiency.
Under the determined boiler efficiency, the BFW flow rate in this By varying the intermediate moisture content, the correspond-
case is 23.83 kg/s. By calculating the steam cycle efficiency, heat ing heat duties of the two dryers are specified and input into ASPEN
duty of SSD is first evaluated to be 9.54 MW. for simulation. The result of the sensitivity analysis is summarized
After specifying this heat duty into the ASPEN simulation as in Table 8. The optimal intermediate moisture contact for the
shown in Fig. 7 (blue), the steam cycle efficiency is 26.73% and the transition from HAD to SSD was found to be 35.94% and the
overall system efficiency is determined to be 23.18% (For interpre- maximum steam cycle efficiency and overall efficiency are found to
tation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is be 31.02% and 26.90% respectively.
referred to the web version of this article.).
5. Discussion
4.4. Case study 4 e integration of HAD and SSD into power
generation Throughout the assessment on the effect of drying on the overall
energy efficiency, three important observations were identified: 1)
Knowing that the drying performance of HAD decreases as the Drying is requisite to power generation, 2) Integration of HAD into
drying process proceeds, a novel idea of the integration of HAD and power generation is better than that of SSD and 3) Integration of
SSD is proposed. HAD is used to dry the EFB to a certain extent and multistage drying to power generation is energetically feasible and
SSD is used to further reduce the moisture content to a target level the performance is the best.
212 H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

Fig. 7. Process flowsheet extracted from ASPEN Plus for case study on integration of HAD and SSD into power generation.

5.1. Drying is requisite to power generation leading to the exceptionally low efficiency achieved by the base
case is due to its low boiler efficiency. Although the amount of
The analysis through the four case studies shows that integration combustion air required is the same for all case, both the energy
of drying to power generation from biomass increases the overall required for preheating raw EFB and the stack loss in base case are
energy efficiency. The results obtained through the four case studies higher than the other cases by about 30%. This phenomenon is thus
are summarized in Table 9. The estimated boiler efficiency under leading to a drop in boiler efficiency. Even though the base case
different cases gave good agreements with the literature [34]. does not involve any steam extraction and the steam cycle effi-
After taking drying into consideration, the overall energy effi- ciency is the highest among all cases, the effect of steam cycle ef-
ciency increased from 21.56% to about 26.90%. The main reason ficiency cannot outweigh the effect regarding to the low boiler

Table 5
Mass balance of EFB power generation with HAD integration. Table 6
Energy balance of EFB power generation with HAD integration.
Ash freed raw EFB Ash Flue gas
Fresh EFB Ash Flue gas Superheated
C3657H4810N39S5O2258K9Cl 13,359 e e
steam from BFW
Ash 641 641 e
K e 55 e C3657H4810N39S5O2258K9Cl 277,025 e e e
Cl e 6 e Ash e 113 e e
N2 74,182 e 74,182 K e e e
O2 22,536 e 3744 Cl e e e
CO2 e e 25,053 N2 e e 6365 e
NO2 e e 279 O2 e e 387 e
SO2 e e e CO2 e e 2482 e
H2O 1556 e 8287 NO2 e e 25 e
CaCO3 77.74 e e SO2 e e e e
CaSO4 e 105.73 e H2O e e 20,286 238,055.36
Total mass flow (kg/h) 112,352 807 111,545 Total energy flow (MJ/h) 277,025 113 29,547 238,055.36
H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215 213

Table 7 Table 9
Energy balance of EFB power generation with SSD integration. Summary of the effect of drying on the overall process efficiency.

Fresh EFB Ash Flue gas Superheated Design of power generation system Boiler Steam cycle Overall
steam from BFW efficiency efficiency energy
efficiency
C3657H4810N39S5O2258K9Cl 277025.04 e e e
Ash e 112.81 e e Base case without dryers 64.90% 33.23% 21.56%
K e e e Power generation integrating HAD 85.93% 30.25% 25.99%
Cl e e e Power generation integrating SSD 86.74% 26.73% 23.18%
N2 e e 2467.05 e Power generation integrating 86.74% 31.02% 26.90%
O2 e e 193.53 e two dryers
CO2 e e 1265.52 e
NO2 e e 12.91 e
SO2 e e e e
H2O e e 20286.64 240225.87 methods. Utilizing mechanical drying as first stage drying reduces
Total Energy Flow (MJ/hr) 227,025.04 112.81 24,225.65 240,225.87 the operating cost and energy consumption in the greatest extent.
However, the moisture in the EFB can hardly be removed pro-
gressively. Consequently, thermal drying is considered as the
efficiency. This result gives a strong motivation to incorporate moisture content reducer. In terms of the HAD, it utilizes low-
drying in the power generation system. pressure steam as hot air preheating which provides a better dry-
ing effect than mechanical drying. Even though, as the temperature
5.2. Integration of HAD into power generation is better than that of gradient during the drying process drops gradually, reduction in
SSD heat transfer rate and drying performance are expected. This in-
creases the cost and size of equipment substantially at the latter
The overall energy efficiency of power generation integrating part of drying. In order to cope with this problem, SSD, which
HAD is higher than that of SSD by 2%. Although the integration of utilizes the extracted medium pressure steam directly from the
SSD to power generation requires the extraction of medium pres- steam cycle through indirect contact of drying, is adopted. This
sure steam (a higher grade heat) from the turbine and reduces the method can elevate the temperature difference between the EFB
steam cycle efficiency by nearly 4%. Although, SSD does not require and drying medium and enhances the drying rate. Although the
further preheating, this raises the boiler efficiency by 1% only when drying rate in this unit is higher, the extraction of medium pressure
compared with HAD. This makes the overall energy efficiency of steam leads to a more significant reduction of overall efficiency
HAD higher than SSD. than HAD. This phenomenon is demonstrated in Section 5.2. Sub-
sequently, using SSD, which has a comparatively higher heat
penetrating power, for the latter stage of drying, is thus demon-
5.3. Integration of multistage drying to power generation is
strated to be a better choice than a single drying unit.
energetically feasible and the performance is the best

Based on the composed sensitivity analysis, the optimal inter- 6. Conclusions


mediate moisture content required to achieve the maximum
overall efficiency is calculated as 35.91%. By changing the drying Single-stage and multi-stage biomass drying for power gener-
unit from HAD to SSD at this moisture content, the overall energy ation have been considered through the utilization of hot air dryer
efficiency is 26.90% which is the highest among all cases. This result and superheated steam dryer. Mass and energy balance and ASPEN
verified the unique idea of integrating multistage drying into power Plus simulation were used throughout the analysis. A base case
generation. Holmberg and Ahtila [14] in their work also found that without drying system was developed to demonstrate the
if the amortisation time is longer, multi-stage drying is generally a improvement regarding to drying. A substantial increase in overall
more economic drying concept. This is because of the use of low- efficiency after drying is obtained because the latent heat of
priced secondary heat that can be easily maximized in multi- vaporization of water was provided by the secondary heat sources
stage drying, therefore decreasing the running costs. among the drying systems.
The insight of combining both HAD and SSD into power gener- The extent of drying through the use of HAD decreases pro-
ation comes up after the thorough analysis on the benefits and gressively since the driving force of drying increases with the
disadvantages of mechanical drying and the two thermal drying temperature gradient between the drying medium and the wet

Table 8
Sensitivity analysis on the effect of MC on the steam cycle efficiency.

Moisture content Heat duty of Heat supplied by Heat duty of Total heat Total Boiler Efficiency (%)
of SSD inlet hot air dryer (MW) extracted LP superheated required (MW) power (MW) duty (MW)
steam (MW) steam dryer (MW)

20.00% 6.94 5.17 1.77 6.94 11.90 39.19 30.37


25.00% 6.09 3.78 2.30 6.09 11.97 39.19 30.54
30.00% 5.12 2.20 2.91 5.12 12.05 39.18 30.75
33.00% 4.46 1.14 3.32 4.46 12.10 39.19 30.88
34.00% 4.23 0.77 3.47 4.23 12.12 39.19 30.93
34.50% 4.11 0.57 3.54 4.11 12.13 39.19 30.95
35.00% 4.00 0.38 3.62 4.00 12.14 39.19 30.98
35.20% 3.95 0.30 3.65 3.95 12.14 39.19 30.99
35.40% 3.90 0.22 3.68 3.90 12.15 39.19 31.00
35.48% 3.88 0.19 3.69 3.88 12.15 39.19 31.01
35.90% 3.80 0.06 3.74 3.80 12.15 39.19 31.02
35.91% 3.77 0.02 3.76 3.77 12.16 39.19 31.02
214 H.T. Luk et al. / Energy 63 (2013) 205e215

biomass. SSD, which utilizes the medium pressure steam for indi- mCaCO3 Mass flow rate of Calcium Carbonate powder (kg/s)
rect drying, provides a larger temperature difference and reduces mdaf Mass flow rate of fuel in dry and ash free basis (kg/s)
the heat loss during hot air preheating. However, extraction of mfuel Mass flow rate of fuel (kg/s)
medium pressure steam attenuates the steam cycle efficiency mj;flue Mass flow rate of component j in flue gas (kg/s)
intensely. An innovative design of integrating both HAD and SSD is mO2 ;flue Mass flow rate of oxygen in flue gas (kg/s)
proposed by using the back pressure steam generated through the mw;EFB Mass of water remaining in the EFB solid mixture (kg/s)
drying in SSD to preheat the hot air for HAD. This idea can minimize mw Mass flow rate of water (kg/s)
the extraction of low pressure steam for hot air preheating and mw;evp Mass flow rate of water evaporated (kg/s)
enhance the steam cycle efficiency. To demonstrate this idea MC Moisture content of EFB (wt%)
quantitatively, the results of overall efficiency were compared and MCi , MCf Initial and final moisture content of EFB (wt%)
proved. The novel idea of integrating HAD and SSD into power MP Medium pressure steam
generation improves the overall efficiency in the greatest extent, MWi Molecular Weight of Component i
from 21.56% to 26.90%. Using SSD and HAD alone as single drying nj Number of mole of element j (mol)
show significant improvements with 23.18% and 25.99% Pw Saturated pressure of water (mmHg)
respectively. QAirHeater Total energy consumption for hot air preheating (MW)
After a thorough study on drying, it is concluded that drying of QHAD Energy required for drying by Hot air dryer (MW)
biomass prior to combustion and power generation is vital to QSSD Total energy requirement of SSD (MW)
satisfactory system efficiency. By using the innovative design of QSSD;EFB Energy required for drying EFB by Superheated steam
integration of HAD and SSD, significant improvement to the overall dryer (MW)
efficiency is observed. It is projected that this paper lays a reliable QSSD;W Energy required for drying water by Superheated steam
support for implementing drying in biomass power generation dryer (MW)
based on the energetic feasibility. Future work on economic anal- Q supply Total heat duty supplied by hot air (MW)
ysis will provide an inclusive study against tradeoffs between Qtot;SSD Total duty of SSD (MW)
methods. Q1 , Q2 Heat duty of intermediate stage 1and 2 (MW)
R Universal Gas Constant (J/mol.K)
Acknowledgments T Temperature of the system (K)
Tambient Ambient Temperature (303 K)
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support Tflue Flue gas temperature (K)
from the Hong Kong RGC-GRF grant (613513), the UGC-Infra- Ti , Tf Inlet and outlet temperature of the solid steam of a dryer
Structure Grant (FSGRF13EG03), the Hong Kong RGC in form of PhD (K)
Fellowship to Oyedun Adetoyese Olajire (PF09-05997) and the Tboiler;in Temperature of boiler feed (K)
studentship from EVNG Program and the international studentship vi Stoichiometric Coefficient of component i
from School of Engineering at HKUST. VLP Very low pressure steam
xj;dry Mass fraction of component j in dry basis
Nomenclature xj;wet Mass fraction of component j in wet basis
xC Mass fraction of carbon
A=Fact Actual air to fuel ratio xH Mass fraction of hydrogen
A=Ftheo Theoretical air to fuel ratio xN Mass fraction of nitrogen
Aexcess Excess air for combustion system (%) xO Mass fraction of oxygen
xAsh Mass fraction of ash xS Mass fraction of sulfur
BFW Boiler feed water X Mass ratio of water to air
ig yO;air Mass fraction of oxygen in air
Cp;j Specific heat capacity of component j (kJ/kg K)
W Turbine power output (MW)
Cp;EFB Specific heat capacity of EFB (MJ/kg K) hb Boiler Efficiency (%)
Cp;w Specific heat capacity of water (MJ/kg K) hoverall Overall Process Efficiency (%)
EBoiler Heat utilized to heat up the BFW in boiler hS Steam Cycle Efficiency (%)
(KJ/kg of wet fuel)
Eflue Rate of heat loss in flue gas (kW)
EFB Empty fruit Bunch References
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