The aerodynamic behavior of wet forestry biomass particles mechanically shaken in a fluidized bed was analyzed with turning velocity between 0.5 and 2 r.p.s. It was concluded that the agitation exerts an important effect on the fluidization of wet biomass particles. The effect of the agitator is not relevant if the particles have low humidity content. In addition, a methodology based on the Erg...

This paper is concerned with presenting methods to study transport and lifetime of both gases and particles originating from biomass burning. It is beyond doubt that biomass burning has a detrimental impact on air quality on both the smaller and larger scale, and studying the fate of biomass burning plumes can provide useful insights within this area of research. As pointed out by the authors, ...

[1] Individual aerosol particles collected over southern Africa during the SAFARI 2000 field study were studied using transmission electron microscopy and field-emission scanning electron microscopy. The sizes, shapes, compositions, mixing states, surface coatings, and relative abundances of aerosol particles from biomass burning, in boundary layer hazes, and in the free troposphere were compar...

Yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) was chosen as the woody biomass for the production of charcoal for use in a liquid fuel slurry. Charcoal produced from this biomass resulted in a highly porous structure similar to the parent material. Micronized particles were produced from this charcoal using a multi-step milling process and verified using a scanning electron microscope and laser diffra...

To realize large-percentage biomass co-firing with coal in existing coal-fired boilers, the combustion behavior of biomass is expected to be similar or comparable to that of coal. When co-firing with coal, biomass is not necessarily to be ground as fine as the dedicated coal particles, because of its higher reactivity. With the objective of achieving promising performance of co-firing with dedi...

Biomass samples (pine, black poplar and chestnut woodchips) were torrefied to improve their grindability before being combusted in blends with coal. Torrefaction temperatures between 240 and 300 °C and residence times between 11 and 43 min were studied. The grindability of the torrefied biomass, evaluated from the particle size distribution of the ground sample, significantly improved compared ...

We quantify the hygroscopic properties of particles freshly emitted from biomass burning and after several hours of photochemical aging in a smog chamber. Values of the hygroscopicity parameter, κ , were calculated from cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measurements of emissions from combustion of 12 biomass fuels commonly burned in North American wildfires. Prior to photochemical aging, the κ of...

Controlled bench scale pulverized coal combustion studies were performed, demonstrating that inorganic particles play a critical role as carriers of organic species. Two commonly-used aerosol mass spectrometry techniques were applied to characterize fine particle formation during coal combustion. It was found that the organic species in coal combustion aerosols have mass spectra similar to thos...

[1] High concentrations of subresolved particles smaller than the 250 mm equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) detection limit of the optical plankton counter (OPC) have hampered its use in turbid estuarine waters. Coincidence of these subresolved particles produced erroneous counts of up to 58 L 1 for 100 mm mesh filtered water samples from three subtropical east Australian estuaries using the l...