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Experimental investigation on
temporal release of potassium from
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MookTzeng Lim

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 Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384

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Full Length Article

T
Experimental investigation on temporal release of potassium from biomass
pellet combustion by flame emission spectroscopy
Zilin Hea,b, Chun Loua,b, , Juntao Fua, Mooktzeng Limc
⁎

a
State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, People’s
Republic of China
b
School of China-EU Institute of Clean and Renewable Energy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, People’s Republic of China
c
Biomass and Plasma Technologies, Renewable Energy and Green Technology, TNB Research Sdn. Bhd., Research Institution Area, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The paper presents experimental investigation on temporal release of potassium (K) from single biomass pellet
Biomass pellet combustion by Flame Emission Spectroscopy (FES). Through the analysis of spontaneous emission spectra and a
Potassium release calibration procedure, the concentration of gas phase potassium, temperature and thermal radiation during the
Flame emission spectroscopy whole process of biomass pellets combustion in a Hencken burner were measured simultaneously.
Combustion temperature
Camphorwood and rice husk with volatile matter 87.93%, 69.12%, respectively, and K2O content from the ash
analysis 7.99%, 1.8%, respectively, were used in the experiment. The effects of biomass composition and
moisture content in the pellet on the temporal release of K were analyzed. Experimental results showed the three
stages (devolatilization, char, and ash stage) of biomass pellets combustion can be distinguished by the changing
points of K concentration, temperature and thermal radiation curves obtained by the FES. The volatile content in
biomass pellet has effect on the release behavior of K. The change of moisture in biomass pellet may affect
significantly the ratio of K release from biomass pellet with low volatile. The experimental investigation proves
FES is feasible for on-line monitoring the K release and combustion process of biomass pellet.

1. Introduction mitigate the potential problems in biomass pellets combustion.

Biomass is regarded as an alternative energy to fossil fuels and its
direct combustion is extensively utilized for generating heat and power.
For example, biomass pellets are used as feedstock in residential stoves
especially in Western countries such as the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Germany, while wood pellets are
also used for power generation in countries such as China, Japan,
Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands [1]. Generally,
biomass pellets are cylindrical solids with diameters of less than 10 mm
and lengths of no more than 35 mm [2]. However, due to high contents
of alkali metals in biomass pellets, there are operational issues related
to fouling, slagging and corrosion, making it a challenge for operating a
clean and efficient biomass combustion process [3–7]. Among the alkali
metals, potassium (K) is typically one of the most important compo-
nents causing these operational issues by reducing the initiation tem-
peratures of slagging and fouling. Potassium is a key plant nutrient and
it exists in high concentrations in many biomass pellets [8,9]. There-
fore, the investigation of the release of alkali metals is important to
Generally, the release behavior of alkali metals during combustion
could be investigated by off-line analysis methods, such as SEM, XRF,
EDX and XRD etc., which focus on physical and chemical analysis of the
sampling deposits from combustion [10]. The composition, phases, and
release rate of alkali metals during the combustion have been obtained.
Jensen et al. [11] studied the release and transformation of gas phase of
potassium and chlorine during straw pyrolysis by conducting thermo-
dynamic equilibrium calculations and SEM. Liao et al. [12] applied
scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray (SEM/EDX)
analysis to investigate the morphology of the residual ash and the
concentration of metal species in ash.
More recently, in-situ optical diagnostic techniques have been ap-
plied to measure the temporal release of alkali metal during combus-
tion. Van Eyk et al. [13,14] conducted a quantitative measurement of
the sodium atoms release in coal combustion using Planar Laser-In-
duced Fluorescence (PLIF). Hus et al. [15] used Laser-Induced Break-
down Spectroscopy (LIBS) to simultaneously measure Na and K in coal
and wood particles combustion, and to provide a quantitative analysis

⁎
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan 430074, Hubei, People’s Republic of China.
E-mail address: Lou_chun@sina.com (C. Lou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.05.133

0016-2361/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Received 21 January 2019; Received in revised form 2 May 2019; Accepted 27 May 2019
Z. He, et al.
by calibrating with a series of concentration of potassium solution. He
and Wang et al. [16] measured concentration of Na and K released from
coal in oxy-fuel combustion using LIBS, and the effects of different O2
and CO2 concentrations were analyzed as well. In addition, to extend
the constraints of a point measurement, they conducted a multi-point
LIBS measurement on Na release [17]. Zhang et al. [18] improved the
calibration method of LIBS, and then investigated the K release from
wood with four different initial masses. In addition, Zhang and Li et al.
[19] proposed a kind of phase-selective LIBS, and then they employed
low-intensity LIBS to distinguish the presence of sodium in the particle
or gas phase, so the dynamic release behavior of Na was obtained [20].
Besides that, Flame Emission Spectrometry (FES) was also employed to
observe the patterns of K-release from combustion particles of biomass
[21,22], and a K-release model of single biomass particle combustion
was developed [23].
In the above experimental investigations, both the temporal data of
alkali metal release and the temperature during combustion are im-
portant parameters for developing models to understand the mechan-
isms alkali metal release. The former data could be obtained by the
optical methods such as LIBS, while the temperature was measured by
pyrometer or thermocouple. In previous works [24–26], FES can also be
employed to measure flame temperature and even more information
related combustion. In this paper, experimental investigation on tem-
poral release of potassium from single biomass pellet combustion by
FES is presented. Through the analysis of spontaneous emission spectra
and a calibration procedure, the concentration of gas phase potassium
and temperature during biomass pellet combustion process could be
determined simultaneously. Firstly, the experimental method including
biomass pellet preparation, experimental setup, and measurement
principle is introduced. Then, the effects of biomass composition and
moisture content on the temporal release of K are analyzed.
2. Experimental method
2.1. Biomass pellet preparation
Two types of biomass with different volatile matter content were
used in this study, which were rice husk and camphorwood collected
from Hubei province, China. The biomass pellet was compressed to
disk-shaped pellet with the diameter of 6 mm and the mass of 50 mg
( ± 1 mg). The properties of the biomass are shown in Table 1. The
proximate and ultimate analyses were made by means of the SDTGA-
2000 industrial analyzer (Las Navas, Spain) and EL-2-type elemental
analyzer (Vario, Germany), respectively. The ash of the biomass was
produced at 823 K and then analyzed using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
spectrometer (Jasco FP-6500, Japan) to obtain the chemical composi-
tion. From Table 1, it can be seen that camphorwood has the higher
content of the volatile matter (87.93%) than that of rice husk (69.12%).
And the ash content in rice husk is much more than that in camphor-
wood. The potassium in the ash of camphorwood is more than 4 times
as much as that in rice husk. When the biomass fuel was burned to
supply heat, generally it will be dried to improve the heat value. In
practice, the moisture content in the biomass fuel is controlled between
Table 1
The properties of two biomass.
Proximate analyses (wt%)
Biomass Volatility Ash Fixed carbon
Camphorwood 87.93 0.89 11.18
Rice husk 69.12 16.2 14.69
XRF results of ash (wt%)
Biomass MgO Al2O3 SiO2
Camphorwood 12.96 ND 10.38
Rice husk ND ND 96.36
1379
Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384
10% and 20%. Thus, the moisture contents in biomass pellets were 10%
and 20% by adjusting the amount of deionized water during the sample
preparation, respectively.
2.2. Experimental setup
As shown in Fig. 1, the experimental setup consists of a multi-ele-
ment non-premixed flame burner (Hencken burner) [20], mass flow
controllers, a nebulizer, a digital camera and two spectrometers. The
main part of the burner includes a ceramic honeycomb (cross-section:
49.1 mm × 49.1 mm) with hundreds of I.D 0.8 mm, O.D. 1.2 mm
stainless steel tubes producing hundreds of multi-element non-pre-
mixed flamelets offering uniform hot flow of combustion product gases.
Mass flow controllers were used to control the flow rates of air steam
(37.5 L/min) and methane (1.5 L/min) to provide a steady high-tem-
perature environment. The pellets were suspended on two ceramic rods
with 0.8 mm diameter at the height of 10 mm above the burner
(HAB = 10 mm). The digital camera was used to record the flame
images during biomass pellets combustion. Two spectrometers
(AvaSpec-ULS3648 and AvaSpec-NIR256) with a fiber and a colli-
mating lens were used to collect the spontaneous emission spectra of
alkali metal and thermal radiation during biomass pellets combustion.
The measurement wavelength range of the AvaSpec-ULS3648 spectro-
meter is from 650 to 865 nm and its spectral resolution of
0.14–0.18 nm, while the AvaSpec-NIR256 spectrometer provides mea-
surement wavelength range from 1100 to 1600 nm and the spectral
resolution with 6 nm. The collimating lens was fixed in a translational
platform that can conduct the measurement at HAB = 20 mm. A laptop
was used to collect the spectrum with time resolution of 1 s. Before
burning biomass pellets, a calibration was performed by using a
nebulizer to atomize a solution with a known concentration of po-
tassium chloride (KCl), which was seeded into the flame with the air
and fuel stream. The detail of the calibration is described later.
2.3. Measurement principle
Generally, the raw outputs of a spectrometer are photon counts of
the radiation as a function of the wavelength, which represent the re-
latively spectral profile. To quantitatively analyze flame spontaneous
emission spectra, it is necessary to calibrate the relatively spectral
profile to absolute spectral radiative intensities along the wavelength.
As described in [24,25], the spectrometers have been calibrated by a
blackbody furnace (M330) with a temperature range from 1000 to
2500 K (with temperature errors within ± 1 K), so that the spectral
radiative intensities could be obtained. Fig. 2(a) gives one case of the
measured spectral radiative intensities in camphorwood pellet com-
bustion. As shown in the Fig. 2(a), spectral radiative intensities Im are
equal to the sum of spectral radiative intensities Ic due to thermal ra-
diation as in Fig. 2(b) and spectral intensities Ik due to emission lines of
gas phase potassium in the flame as in Fig. 2(c), which are Im = Ic + Ik.
The spectral radiative intensities due to thermal radiation can be
described by the approximate form of Planck’s radiation law as below
Ultimate analyses (dried basis wt%)
C H O N S
48.7 5.93 43.8 0.51 0.17
38.2 3.15 41.38 0.89 0.19
P2O5 SO3 K2O CaO Fe2O3
8.72 5.32 7.99 53.77 0.59
ND 0.55 1.8 0.88 0.24
Z. He, et al. Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384

Fig. 1. Experimental setup.

1 c1 ⎛
ελ / exp ⎛ 2 ⎞ − 1⎞,
c
Ic (λ ) =
π λ5 ⎝ ⎝ λT ⎠ ⎠ (1)

where T is temperature and ε is emissivity. In visible and near-infrared

wavelength range, flame temperature T could be calculated by the
method of multi-wavelength radiation analysis [24–26].
The spectral intensities Ik due to emission lines of K in the flame can
be calculated by Ik = Im + Ic, as shown in Fig. 2(b). According to flame
emission spectroscopy [27,28], potassium in species released to the gas
phase in the flame are thermally excited such that the intensity of
spectral emission line is taken to be proportional to the concentration of
volatilised potassium in the flame [22,23]. A calibration procedure was
done to calculate the potassium concentration in the flame.
Besides that, band emissive power E between the measured wave-
length range was calculated to represent thermal radiation during
biomass pellets combustion, as below:

E = π ∫λ1λ2 Ic dλ, (2)

where λ1 and λ2 are the beginning and ending wavelength of the

measurement wavelength range, respectively.

2.4. Calibration

To obtain the concentration of K from FES measurement, a cali-

bration procedure similar with that in [15] was conducted in the
burner. Various concentrations of potassium chloride (KCl) solutions
were seeded into the flame by the nebulizer. The distribution of alkali
salt in the flame was assumed to be uniform. According to [15], the
concentration of K in the flame C is presented in parts per million
(ppm), as calculated as below:
vs × cs × R × Tr
C= ,
M × P × (vg + va ) (3)

where P is pressure, R is ideal gas constant, Tr is room temperature, M is

mole mass of alkali salt, Cs is concentration of alkali salt in the solution,
vs is consumption rate of alkali salt, vg is flow rate of methane, and vs is
flow rate of air. During the calibration experiments, the minimum
concentration (10 ppm) of potassium chloride (KCl) solutions was
seeded into the flame by the nebulizer. The corresponding concentra-
tion of gas phase K in the flame is 0.1 ppm. It’s the minimum con-
centration that the spectrometer could detect the spectral intensity of K
from the flame. Thus the detection limit during this experiment is
Fig. 2. Spectral intensities of camphorwood pellet combustion. (a) Measured
0.1 ppm. During the calibration, the emission line of K at wavelength of
spectral radiative intensities; (b) spectral radiative intensities due to thermal
766.490 nm was chosen to calculate the spectral intensity of K. The
radiation; (c) spectral intensities due to emission lines of gas phase potassium.
spectral data, collected at different seeding concentrations, are plotted
in Fig. 3. From the raw experimental data, there is a linear relationship
between the spectral intensity and the concentration of gas phase

1380
Z. He, et al.
3500
Raw experimental data
3000 Fitted curve of raw experimental data
Data after correction
Fitted line after correction
Intensity (uW/cm 2/nm/sr )
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Concentration(ppm)
Fig. 3. FES calibration results for potassium.
potassium at the low concentrations. However, a significant self-ab-
sorption can be observed at the high concentrations, which leads to a
nonlinear fitted curve. Based on the analysis in [15], the self-absorption
effect could be corrected using the Beer-Lambert law. The fitted linear
equation after correction was obtained, as shown in Eq. (4). The cali-
bration fitting achieved a correlation coefficient of 0.95 in the range of
0–10.4 ppm, with a detection limit of 0.1 ppm.
Ik = 269.1 × C R2 = 0.95
3. Experimental results and analysis
3.1. Effect of biomass composition
Fig. 4 shows typical flame images from the combustion of two types
of biomass pellets (moisture content 10%). As shown in Fig. 4, the
biomass pellets are exposed to the burner 34 s. Camphorwood pellet
ignites at 35 s while rice husk ignites at 36 s. After that, a luminous
flame above the pellet is observed due to the release of volatile matter
under high temperature conditions. The flame from camphorwood and
rice husk extinct at 54 s and 50 s, respectively. Figs. 5 and 6 show the
measured K concentrations, temperature, and thermal radiation from
the combustion of the biomass pellets (moisture content 10%). Gen-
erally, the combustion process of biomass pellet can be divided into
devolatilization, char combustion, and ash stages. However, from
Figs. 5 and 6, the temporal release profiles of K from two types of
biomass are different due to their difference in composition.
The K concentration evolution of camphorwood pellet combustion
is seen to occur in three stages, which is consistent with previous
measurements of K release by LIBS during the combustion of pinewood
[15,18]. Both camphorwood and pinewood have similar composition,
especially their high volatile matter content. As shown in Fig. 5, there
are two peaks corresponding to the devolatilization and char stages,
respectively, and a decay process at the ash stage. In the devolatiliza-
tion stage, there is a short burst of high concentration K ranging from
0.2 to 1.96 ppm, and then decreases slightly, while the time for this
stage is about 19 s. During this period, the potassium salts may be
present in aqueous form and potassium is distributed via ion exchange
with hydroxyl groups in the organic biomass components. Once the
drying stage is complete, the organic components begin to degrade, and
the volatile matter (including K-based compounds) is emitted [21]. The
second stage, which is associated with char combustion, is a longer
process than the first stage. The K concentration varies over the range of
0.2–3.05 ppm, and the time for this stage is about 213 s. The K in the
flame is generally considered to be caused by the thermal decomposi-
tion or vaporization of the K species in the char. The third stage consists
of reactions for the formation of K-based compounds in the ash, and is
Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384
associated with a gradual decline in concentration.
In addition, the temperature and thermal radiation during the whole
combustion process of camphorwood also have been obtained through
the analysis of near infrared spectra. Once the pellet is ignited, the
flame temperature immediately increases to more than 1800 K, which is
due to the heat release from the combustion of the volatile matter. As
shown in Figs. 4(a) and 5, a luminous flame is observed and thermal
radiation increases rapidly in this stage. The luminous flame extin-
guishes and the temperature drops to less than 1100 K as the volatiles
are consumed, which indicates that the combustion has entered into the
second stage. During this stage, char reacts with gas-phase components
and generate heat. As shown in Figs. 5 and 4(a), the temperature in this
stage shows a trend of gradually rise from 1063 to 1440 K, while the
pellet volume reduces with the combustion of char. The maximum K
12 release (at approximately 266 s) coincides with the turning point of
temperature curve and the thermal radiation curve. After the peak, the
pellet volume stops decreasing since char burn-out is completed. The
latter stage corresponds to the ash formation stage. The temperature
remains constant residual heat from the ash.
Fig. 6 shows the temporal profile of K release from the combustion
of the rice husk pellet, which is different from that of camphorwood and
does not have obvious three stages of combustion. In the first stage of
rice husk pellet combustion, a luminous flame is observed and there is a
short burst of high concentration of K ranging from 0.2 to 1.48 ppm
which decreases rapidly. The time for this stage is about 14 s, shorter
than that of camphorwood. The maximum value is less than that of
camphorwood, which is due to the lower content of volatile matter and
(4)
K2O in the ash of rice husk. The char combustion stage of rice husk is
shorter due to the higher ash content and less combustible matter. A
small amount of K is emitted at 55 s. The ash left after the combustion
covers the surface of char particles, so the rice husk with higher ash
content enters into the third stage of ash formation stage at a faster rate.
Finally, the K concentration of rice husk in the ash stage declines and
asymptotes to zero, which is lower than that of camphorwood. This is
due to the high content of SiO2 (96.36%) in rice husk, promoting the
reaction of K with silica to form insoluble potassium based silicates. The
formation of potassium silicates reduces the amount of gaseous po-
tassium, which is observed during the devolatilization stage [29].
Nonetheless, camphorwood has less content SiO2 (10.38%) and higher
content CaO (53.77%). The SiO2 in camphorwood would react with Ca
rather than K, yielding less potassium silicate and a higher proportion
of potassium is volatilized into the gaseous phase. The amount of po-
tassium release from camphorwood is far higher than that from the rice
husk, corresponding to the area under the curves of the temporal re-
lease profiles of camphorwood and rice husk.
The temperatures and thermal radiation during the combustion
process of rice husk pellet also are shown in Fig. 6. In the devolatili-
zation stage, the flame temperature of rice husk increases to more than
1700 K. The highest emissive power of rice husk is smaller than that of
camphorwood. The phenomenon during this period resembles that of
camphorwood. Then, the temperature decreases to 1086 K. Never-
theless, after the flame extinguishes, the rice husk pellet combustion
passes the char stage and enters into the ash stage. Due to the high ash
content in rice husk, there is not much combustible matter in rice husk.
The pellet volume of rice husk reduces in the char and ash stages, but at
a rate that is relatively lower than camphorwood. Correspondingly, the
temperature in the two stages increases from 1086 to 1187 K. Besides
that, the pellet volume of rice husk in the ash stage is still bigger than
that of camphorwood in the ash stage. Thus, the temperature of rice
husk in the ash stage is lower than that of camphorwood in the ash
stage.
3.2. Effect of moisture content
Figs. 7 and 8 show the temporal release profile of K from cam-
phorwood and rice husk pellets combustion with 10% and 20%
1381
Z. He, et al. Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384

(a)

(b)
Fig. 4. Typical flame images of two kinds of biomass pellets (moisture content 10%) combustion. (a) camperwood, (b) rice husk.

1.5 1.5
3
2
1.0
1.0
Ck
Ck (ppm)

Ck (ppm)

0.5
Ck

2
0 0.0
0.5
1 30 40 50 60 70 80
40 60 80 100 A

0.0
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 20000 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
2000

1500 1500
2000 2000
1000
T (K)

1000
T(K)

1500 1500
1000 1000
T

500
T

500 500 500

0 0
0 40 60 80 100 0 30 40 50 60 70 80
A A

5 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
1.8x10 1.2x105
t=35s 160,000
1.5x105 120,000 t=49s
E (uW/cm^2/sr)

t=53s t=266s t=36s

E (uW/cm^2/sr)

1.2x105 80,000 9.0x104 t=55s

E

40,000
9.0x104 0 120000
40 60 80 100 4
6.0x104 A
6.0x10 90000
E

60000
3.0x104
3.0x104 30000
0.0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 30 40 50 60 70 80
0.0 A

t(s) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
t (s)
Fig. 5. Measured K concentration, temperature, and thermal radiation of
camphorwood pellet (moisture content 10%) combustion. Fig. 6. Measured K concentration, temperature, and thermal radiation of rice
husk pellet (moisture content 10%) combustion.

1382
Z. He, et al. Fuel 253 (2019) 1378–1384

4
3 266s (a)
255s 70
2 10% moisture

Ck
Ck (ppm)

2 20% moisture
0 60

Ratio of K release (%)

1 40 60 80 100
A
50
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 40
2000

1500 30

1000 2000
T(K)

1500
20
1000
500
T
500
10
0
0 40 60 80 100
A

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 0

devolatilization char ash
5 120,000
1.2x10
80,000
E (uW/cm^2/sr)

9.0x104 40,000
0 (b) 70 10% moisture
40 60 80 100
6.0x104 A
20% moisture
60
10%
3.0x104 20%

Ratio of K release (%)

0.0 50
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
t (s)
40
Fig. 7. Release behavior of K from camphorwood pellets with different
moisture content (10% and 20%).
30

2.0
2.0 20
1.5 1.5
Ck (ppm)

1.0
Ck

1.0 0.5 10
0.0
0.5 30 40 50 60 70 80
53s 55s 0
0.0
devolatilization char ash
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
2000 Fig. 9. Ratio of potassium release in every stage during the combustion. (a)
10% Camphorwood, (b) rice husk.
1500 20%
T (K)

1000 2000
1500 hemicellulose contents in the biomass at varying degrees of sig-
500 1000
nificance, thereby potentially reducing the inorganic elements (espe-
T

500
0
0 30 40 50 60 70 80 cially alkali metals) in its corresponding ash after combustion [30,31].
A

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 In the second stage of combustion, the K release from rice husk and
1.0x105 camphorwood pellets is similar. With the increase of moisture content,
the peak concentration of K from camphorwood during char combus-
E (uW/cm^2/sr)

8.0x104
120,000
6.0x104
tion is reduced from 3.05 to 2.6 ppm, and the corresponding time for
90,000
4.0x10 4 60,000 maximum release shifted from 266 s to 255 s. A slight change of K re-
E

2.0x104
0.0
0 100 200 300 400
t (s)
Fig. 8. Release behavior of K from rice husk pellets with different moisture
content (10% and 20%).
moisture content, respectively. The effect of moisture on the K release
of the two biomass pellets combustion is complex.
Firstly, in the devolatilization stage, the increase of moisture con-
tent has more effect on K release from rice husk than that from cam-
phorwood. When the moisture content is increased from 10% to 20%,
the peak concentration of K from rice husk during devolatilization in-
creased from 1.48 to 1.84 ppm, while the peak concentration of K from
camphorwood during this stage increased from 1.96 to 2.09 ppm. The
increase of moisture content dissolves potassium (alkali metals are so-
luble in water) [9] and is emitted as KOH during the devolatilization
stage [11], while the subsequent release of potassium (and its com-
pounds) during the char combustion and ash formation stages are re-
duced. The increase in moisture content via leaching affects the ash and
30,000 lease from rice husk in the char stage was also observed. When the
0
30 40 50
A
60 70 80 moisture content increased from 10% to 20%, the small peak of K re-
500 600 700 800 900 lease during the char combustion stage reduced from 0.34 to 0.19 ppm,
and the corresponding time for maximum release shifted from 55 s to
53 s. Furthermore, as mentioned in [32], moisture evaporation con-
sumes heat, and the heating value of biomass decreases with increasing
moisture content, which reduces thermal radiation. In the last stage,
with the increase of moisture content, the K release from both cam-
phorwood and rice husk pellets combustion decrease.
Fig. 9 shows the ratio of K release in each combustion stage from
camphorwood and rice husk with 10% and 20% moisture content. As
shown in Fig. 9 (a), during the combustion of camphorwood pellet, the
ratio of K release at every stage during the combustion is about 3:25:72,
which is similar with the results in [16]. With the increase of moisture
content, the ratio of K release in the char stage reduces while the ratio
of K release in the ash increases. However, the 10% increment of
moisture content in camphorwood pellet has no significant effect on the
ratio of K release. This is because the moisture would have dissolved the
higher calcium contents before potassium for the camphorwood pellet.
Similar results have reported that the leaching of woody based biomass

1383
Z. He, et al.
does not significantly affect the lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose
contents [33], which means an increase in moisture does not reduce the
inorganic elements (i.e., potassium) significantly via leaching.
From Fig. 9(b), it can be seen that the ratio of K release in the de-
volatilization and ash stages are higher compared to those in char
combustion for rice husk pellet. There is a significant variation in the
ratio of K release from rice husk with the increase of moisture content.
This may be caused by the lower K2O content in the ash of rice husk.
And, when the moisture content is higher, more potassium in rice husk
is emitted during the devolatilization stage (as KOH).
4. Conclusions
In this paper, based on the convenient FES technique, on-line
measurements of temporal release of potassium during camphorwood
and rice husk pellets combustion were conducted. Through the analysis
of spontaneous emission spectra and a calibration procedure, the con-
centration of gas phase potassium and temperature during the whole
process of biomass pellet combustion were obtained simultaneously.
The effects of biomass composition and moisture content on the tem-
poral release of K were analyzed. Experimental results showed the three
stages (devolatilization, char, and ash stage) of biomass pellets com-
bustion can be distinguished by the changing points of K concentration,
temperature and thermal radiation curves obtained by the FES. The
volatile content in biomass pellet has effect on the release behavior of
K. The change of moisture in biomass pellet may affect significantly the
ratio of K release from biomass pellet with low volatile.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Key Research and
Development Program (2018YFB0604100), National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Nos. 51676078, 51827808), Science and
Technology Partnership Program, Ministry of Science and Technology
of China (KY201401003)
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