Combustion of poultry-derived fuel in a coal-fired pilot-scale circulating fluidized bed combustor

Poultry farming generates large quantities of waste. The current practice is to spread this waste onto farmland as fertilizer. However, as the factory farms for poultry grow both in numbers and size, the amount of waste generated has increased significantly in recent years. In consequence, excessive application of poultry wastes on farmland is resulting in more and more nutrients entering the surface water. One of the options being considered is the use of poultry waste as power plant fuel. Since poultry-derived fuel (PDF) is biomass, its co-firing will have the added advantage of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power generation. To evaluate the combustion characteristics of co-firing PDF with coal, combustion tests were conducted in CanmetENERGYʹs pilot-scale circulating fluidized bed combustor (CFBC). The goal of this program was to verify that PDF can be co-fired with coal and, more importantly, that emissions from the combustion process are not adversely affected by the presence of PDF in the feed. The test results were very promising and support the idea that co-firing in an existing CFBC boiler firing coal is a good way to utilize PDF, resolving a potential waste disposal problem while reducing the amount of CO2 released from the boiler.