Inertization of ignition in biomass dust layers

Resumen

The use of biomass has heavily increased in the past years, and so has the number of accidents related to its storage, transport, and use.In this context, it is important to define the flammability and explosion characteristics in order to have a proper knowledge of material’sbehaviour and prevent accidents (Eckhoff 2003). The present work aims to study ignition inertization in biomass dust layers. To do so, woodpellets were milled and sieved obtaining a < 1 mm particle size sample. The sample’s flammability characteristics were defined troughminimum ignition temperature of dust layer and cloud (MIT-l and MIT-c) and minimum ignition energy (MIE). Moreover, the characterizationwas completed using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) so moisture, volatile content, maximum weight loss temperature, etc., were defined.Furthermore, the present study focuses on a possible solution to biomass flammability tendency by adding solid inert material (Danzi,Marmo, and Riccio 2015; Janés and Carson 2013). In particular, two different inert materials were used (sodium bicarbonate and recycledglass) and mixed with biomass at different concentrations (30%, 50% and 70%). Once the mixed samples were produced, minimum ignitiontemperature of layer (MIT-l) was defined for each sample, so the inerting effect was clearly noticed. Additionally, the samples (both raw andmixed with inerts) were tested using TGA and DSC techniques in order to analyze their thermal behaviour, thus allowing the definition of athreshold that indicates the optimal inert concentration that significantly increases MIT-l while the heating value is not substantially reduced.