Numerical Simulation Research on the Process of Reburning South American Coal and Cornstalk

Photo-chemical smog and acid rain formed from many pollutants including NOx are serious problems that have attracted much attention due to their negative influences on the atmosphere, plants, animals and even building materials. Effective measures of controlling NOx emissions are necessary. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Ansys Fluent 14.5, has been applied to research the processes of South American coal (SAm) reburning and cornstalk reburning. The influences of reburn zone excess air coefficient, reburning fuel fraction (Rff) and the secondary air temperature on the furnace combustion and NOx reduction have been determined. Results show that, in the simulated data range, the lower reburn zone excess air coefficient, the greater the rate of denitration for both SAm reburning and cornstalk reburning. The highest rates of denitration for SAm reburning and cornstalk reburning were 56.15% and 66.89%, respectively, in comparison to the conventional combustion. The denitration rate increases OPEN ACCESS Energies 2015, 8 9435 with the increase of reburning fuel fraction. However, when the reburning fuel fraction increases beyond a certain level, fuels within the furnace will undergo incomplete combustion. Under the premise of the fuel burnout, a relatively good case occurs at the reburning fuel fraction of 20% for the two kinds of reburning, and the NOx removal rate is 60.57% for cornstalk reburning, which is 7.61% higher than that of the SAm reburning. Temperature also has certain influences on the denitration effect and it shows that, in the lower temperature range, the higher the temperature of the secondary air, the higher the denitration rate. However, as temperature reaches a certain value, the denitration effect is no longer enhanced but reduced. For the two kinds of reburning, the case with the secondary air at 500 K is a relatively good one, and the NOx removal rate reaches 66.36% for cornstalk reburning, while it is 55% for SAm reburning. Overall, cornstalk reburning provides a higher NOx reduction rate in comparison to SAm reburning.