EFFECT OF BIOMASS BLENDING AND DESULPHURIZATION ON FLUE GAS EMISSIONS OF NIGERIAN SUB BITUMINOUS COAL BRIQUETTES

The effect of blending, briquetting and desulphurization of coal and biocoal briquettes of Nigerian sub bituminous coal is discussed. The flue gas of the coal and biocoal samples were analyzed to study the emission characteristics of nitrogen oxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) due to environment concern with the use of coal as either domestic or industrial fuel. Sub bituminous coal sample from eight coal mines and sites in five states in Nigeria were collected. The states and sites included Kogi (Ogboyoga, Okaba), Benue(Owukpa),Nassarawa (Lafia/Obi), Ebonyi (Afikpo) and Enugu (Okpara,Onyeama and Ezinmo).The samples were pulverized and blended with sawdust at various constituent ratios of 0:100, 10:90, 20:80, 30:70, 40:60, 50:50 and 100:0 sawdust : coal. Cassava starch was used as binding material while calcium hydroxide was used as desulphurizing agent for the briquettes. Emission tests for various compositions of the briquettes were carried out and the O2, CO2, CO, NO2 and SO2 of the briquettes were compared. Results showed reduction in combustion emission with increase in sawdust concentration with the reduction in smoke and noxious gas emission. The sulphur dioxide range of the coal briquettes is between 0.018ppm and 0.028ppm which decreased to between 0.025and 0.005 ppm in biocoal briquettes. Same for nitrogen oxide which range between 0.034ppm and 0.038ppm but decreased to between 0.025 and 0.019 ppm and carbon monoxide range of between 0.3ppm and 0.48ppm which decreased to between 0.43ppm and 0.12 ppm in the biocoal briquettes. The 50:50 blends of sawdust to coal for Ogboyaga has the lowest carbon monoxide emission of 0.12 ppm; Okpara has the lowest sulphur dioxide emission of 0.005ppm while Onyeama has the lowest nitrogen oxide emission of 0.019 ppm. These are below the national ambient air quality standards which put sulphur dioxide at 1.4 x 10-1 ppm. The biocoal briquette emits less sulphur dioxide because it contains desulphurizing agent which fixes some of the sulphur that would have gone to the atmosphere to ash. Keywords: biocoal briquettes, blending, flue gas emissions, sub - bituminous coal.

Quantifying South Africa’s sulphur dioxide emission efficiency in coal-powered electricity generation by fitting the three-parameter log-logistic distribution

This paper fits the three-parameter log-logistic (3LL) distribution to sulphur dioxide (SO2) monthly emissions in kilograms per gigawatt hour (kg/GWh) and in milligrams per cubic nano metre (mg/Nm3), at 13 of Eskom’s coal fired power-generating stations in South Africa. The aim is to quantify and describe the emission of sulphur dioxide at these stations using a statistical distribution, and to also estimate the probabilities of extreme emissions and exceedances (emissions above a certain threshold). Using the 3LL distribution is proposed as such a distribution. The log-logistic distribution is a special form of a Burr-type distribution. Various goodness-of-fit measures, including the Kolmogorov Smirnov, the Anderson Darling and some graphical tests, are employed to test if the 3LL distribution is a good fit to the data. The maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the parameters. The distribution fit is important as it then becomes possible to quantify and manage the SO2 emissions effectively. The 3LL distribution, which is compared with three other distributions, gave the best overall fit to most of the power stations. Keywords: emission, Eskom, log logistic distribution, goodness of fit, sulphur dioxide, Burr-type distributionHighlightsQuantification of SO2 emissions in terms of a statistical distributionCalculating the probability of SO2 emissions exceeding certain specified limitsRanking power stations in terms of SO2 emissions efficiency

Effects of Different Forms and Doses of Sulphur Application on Wheat

Deficiency of sulphur (S) is an important limiting factor of plant growth for sustainable agricultural production. The decline in sulphur dioxide emission, decrease in S-containing fertilizer consumption due to the high cost of S-fertilizers, breeding of new high yielding species are the well known causes of S-deficiency. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of several doses of K2SO4-S, CaSO4-S and elemental-S applied on growth, shoot dry matter yield, S and N concentrations of wheat cultivar. The experiments were conducted in three soils differed from available S concentrations. Effects of different S-treatments (0, 25, 50 and 100 mg S kg-1) and S-forms had significant effects on shoot dry matter yields of plants. Sulphur from different S-sources did not increase shoot S-concentrations in Eskisehir and Konya soils, but increase was significant obtained in the Harran soil. Shoot S-concentration in Harran soil for zero K2SO4 treatment was 0.09%, the values were 0.22, 0.26 and 0.27% respectively for 25, 50 and 100 mg kg-1 treatments. The results indicated significant effects of S-treatments on plant growth and yield mostly based on soil properties, especially the available S-levels

Effect of the synthetic zeolite modification on its physicochemical and catalytic properties in the preparation of the catalysts effectively removing sulphur dioxide from exhaust gases

This work presents the research results of the influence of modification deSONOx type catalyst of the sulfur dioxide emissions in the process of the hard coal combustion. The addition of zeolite catalysts modified by transition metal ions: V, Mg, activated by zinc sorbent with or without graphite addition caused the deeper burning of coal grains. The addition of the deSOx catalysts to the coal resulted in lowered sulphur dioxide emission. The addition of unmodified zeolite to coal during combustion reduced sulphur dioxide emission at about 5%. The modification of the support by both V and Mg reduced the amount of sulphur dioxide significantly. The obtained results of SO2 removal from exhaust gases were from 34.5% for Sip/Mg to 68.3% for Sip/V.

The lichen Parmelia physodes (L.) Ach. as indicator for determination of the degree of atmospheric air pollution in the area contaminated by flourine and sulphur dioxide emission

On the area involved in the influence of conteminations emitted by the aluminium works and electric power plant, the degree of atmospheric air pollution was evaluated on the basis of the behaviour of healthy thallus of the lichen <i>Parmelia physodes</i>, analysis of fluorine and sulphur content in this thallus and in the bark substrate and the F and SO₂ concentrations in the air.