Slurry fuels based on wood and coal processing and petroleum refinery waste are an environmentally friendly and economically feasible alternative to the conventional solid fuel-coal. As part of this experimental research, we compared a set of fuels (coal and coal-water slurries with and without petrochemicals) by normalizing and calculating the specific concentrations of pollutants from their combustion. The pollutant concentrations were normalized with respect to the mass of burnt fuel, the thermal energy released by combustion, specific mass emissions per unit time, specific maximum mass emissions, and specific mass emissions per 1 kg of fuel equivalent or 1 MJ of thermal energy. The key objective of this research was to develop a method for comparing composite fuels in terms of their relative environmental friendliness. As part of the research, coal combustion was notable for the peak emissions of gaseous pollutants irrespective of the fuel mass and combustion chamber temperature. When slurries were burnt, CO2, SO2, and NOx concentrations were 12-90% lower as compared to coal. The research findings established that the most promising fuel of all the slurries under study is the one based on coal slime and sawdust due to its high environmental indicators.
Keywords: Anthropogenic emissions; Coal-water slurries; Combustion; Emission factor; Normalization; Petrochemicals.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.