Performance characteristics of a miniature fluidised bed boiler as an alternative for steam power generation in rural areas of Nigeria

Abstract

With the ever-growing energy demand over the globe, Nigeria’s demand and utilization of power has been an on-going problem for  decades with less than 40% of rural community connected to the national grid. The need to explore the usage of safe and naturally  abundant materials whose relevance has largely been underestimated in power generation becomes nonnegotiable in order to sustain  the socioeconomic development. This paper presents performance of fluidised bed combustion boiler that depends on the fuel  distribution in which agricultural waste solid fuel (corncob) was burnt at bed height of 77mm, 47 mm and 27 mm using 250 µm granular  material. The results recorded stability in the superheated temperature of 141^oC at 55 minutes, 147oC at 45 minutes and 163^oC at 30  minutes respectively. The maximum superheated pressure obtained were 2.1 bar at 55 minutes for bed height of 77mm, 2.6 bar from bed  height of 47 mm at 45 minutes and 4.0 bar from bed height of 27 mm from 45 to 55 minutes. Lastly, emission analysis of the flue gas  has shown to be low in various percentages of 0.0003% of NOx , 0.001% HC and 0.02% of CO.