The influence of the furnace design on emissions from small wood pellet burners

Two pellet burners have been installed and tested in a small scale boiler for house heating. The boiler is representative for the Swedish households and the burners, upwards and forward burning, are commercially available on the Swedish market. This work focuses on the boiler operation and particularly the potential of improved emissions by changing the furnace design. An insulation of the fireplace lowered the emission of CO by 50% and the emission of OGC by 60% for the upwards burning burner at low load. Modifying the furnace using baffles did not have any influence on the emissions. It is concluded that an increased temperature in the furnace is more important than an increased residence time of the combustible gases to decrease the emissions. At full load both burners emit approximately 300 mg CO per nm3 gas and the emission of OGC are negligible. At half load the emissions of CO increased to 1000 mg/mn3 and OGC to 125 mg/mn3 in the upward burning burner. The forwards burning burner had a small increase in OGC to about 10 mg/mn3 at half load while the emission of CO increased to 800 mg/mn3. The forward burning burner is less influenced on the furnace design compared to the upward burning burner. The comparatively high emissions of OGC for the upward burning burner is explained by the intermittent operation. However, it was possible to reduce the emissions from this burner by ceramic insulation of the furnace Project report from the program: Small scale combustion of biofuels. 3 refs, 12 figs, 2 tab, 1 appendix with 33 figs and 12 tabs