UNIVERSITY OF BATANGASCOLLEGE OF ENGINEERINGMECHANICAL
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
FUELS
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR THEREQUIREMENT IN THE SUBJECTME11 ME
LABORATORY I
SUBMITTED BY:DAMIREZ, VON ERIC A.
SUBMITTED TO:ENGR. GILBERT M. MENDOZAINSTRUCTOR
JANUARY 2016
SOLID FUELS
Natural Soild Fuel
Coal is a combustible, sedimentary, organic rock, which is
composed mainly of carbon, hydrogenand oxygen. It is formed from
vegetation, which has been consolidated between other rock strata
and altered by the combined effects of pressure and heat over
millions of years to form coal seams. Coal is a fossil fuel and is
far more plentiful than oil or gas, with around110years of coal
remaining worldwide.Not only does coal provide electricity, it is
also an essential fuel for steel and cement production, and other
industrial activities.
Anthracite coal is a form of coal that is almost made entirely
of carbon. Anthracite coal is much harder than other forms of coal
such as bituminous, and is usually found in areas surrounding
mountains or deep valleys. Anthracite burns much cleaner than other
forms of coal due to its low pollutant content. In fact, anthracite
may contain 91% to 98% pure carbon, leaving only 2% to 9% of other
elements. Anthracite coal is difficult to ignite and burns with a
blue, smokeless flame.
Semi Anthracite coal
Bituminous coal is the most abundant rank of coal. It accounts
for about 50% of the coal produced in the United States. Bituminous
coal is formed when a sub bituminous coal is subjected to increased
levels of organic metamorphism. It has a carbon content of between
77 and 87% on a dry ash-free basis and a heating value that is much
higher than lignite or sub bituminous coal. On the basis of
volatile content, bituminous coals are subdivided into low volatile
bituminous, medium volatile bituminous and high volatile
bituminous. Bituminous coal is often referred to as "soft coal,"
however this designation is a layman's term and has little to do
with the hardness of the rock.
Semi BituminousSub bituminous coal is a lignite that has been
subjected to an increased level of organic metamorphism. This
metamorphism has driven off some of the oxygen and hydrogen in the
coal. That loss produces coal with a higher carbon content (71 to
77% on a dry ash-free basis). Sub bituminous coal has a heating
value between 8300 and 13000 British Thermal Units per pound on a
mineral matter free basis. On the basis of heating value it is
subdivided into sub bituminous A, sub bituminous B and sub
bituminous C ranks.Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a
soft brown combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally
compressed peat. It is considered the lowest rank of coal due to
its relatively low heat content. Lignite is more accessible than
other types of coal because lignite veins are located relatively
near the surface, eliminating the need for underground excavation
in tunnels.
Peat is a heterogeneous mixture of more or less decomposed plant
(humus) material that has accumulated in a water-saturated
environment and in the absence of oxygen. Its structure ranges from
more or less decomposed plant remains to a fine amorphic, colloidal
mass. The warmer the climate, the quicker the plant material will
decompose. The rate of accumulating plant material is greatest in
areas where the temperature is high enough for plant growth but too
low for the vigorous microbial activity that breaks down the plant
material. Such conditions are found more frequently in the northern
hemisphere.
Some renewable energy plants run on woody waste from many other
sources as well including wood, brush and stumps from clearing
projects in town, unused pallets, trees that have been damaged by
storms or infested with insects, trees too small for lumber, and
agricultural leftovers such as rice hulls and evenin California
fruit pits and grape skins. The easiest way to turn sawdust or
leftover wood into energy is to burn it something that lumber, pulp
and paper companies have been doing in their mills for a long time.
Wood scraps can be chipped up or compressed into pellets that can
be shipped to utility companies where it is burned much like coal.
In fact, the pellets are often co-fired with coal. Pound for pound,
wood pellets only pack about 60 to 70 percent as much energy as
coal, but thats still enough to spin a turbine and generate
electricity. Burning wood waste is a simple process, but getting
the debris to the power plant can be a logistical nightmare--and an
extra cost, economically and environmentally in fuel alone.
Bagasse is the matted cellulose fiber residue from sugar cane
that has been processed in asugar mill. Previously, bagasse was
burned as a means of solid waste disposal. However, as the cost of
fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity has increased, bagasse has
come to be regarded as a fuel rather than refuse. Bagasse is a fuel
of varying composition, consistency, and heating value. These
characteristics depend on the climate, type of soil upon which the
cane is grown, variety of cane, harvesting method, amount of cane
washing, and the efficiency of the milling plant. In general,
bagasse has a heating value between 3,000 and 4,000 British thermal
units per pound (Btu/lb) on a wet, as-fired basis. Most bagasse has
a moisture content between 45 and 55 percent by weight.
Prepared or Manufactured Solid Fuels
Coke is the most important raw material fed into the blast
furnace in terms of its effect on blast furnace operation and hot
metal quality. A high quality coke should be able to support a
smooth descent of the blast furnace burden with as little
degradation as possible while providing the lowest amount of
impurities, highest thermal energy, highest metal reduction, and
optimum permeability for the flow of gaseous and molten products.
Introduction of high quality coke to a blast furnace will result in
lower coke rate, higher productivity and lower hot metal cost.
Charcoal is a light, black residue, consisting of carbon and any
remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile
constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is
usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other
substances in the absence of oxygen (see char and biochar). It is
usually an impure form of carbon as it contains ash; however, sugar
charcoal is among the purest forms of carbon readily available,
particularly if it is not made by heating but by a dehydration
reaction with sulfuric acid to minimise the introduction of new
impurities, as impurities can be removed from the sugar in advance.
The resulting soft, brittle, lightweight, black, porous material
resembles coal.
Briquetted Coal (or briquet) is a compressed block of coal dust
or other combustible biomass material such as charcoal, sawdust,
wood chips, peat, or paper used for fuel and kindling to start a
fire. The term comes from the French language and is related to
brick. They are a biofuel substitute to coal and charcoal.
Briquettes are mostly used in the developing world, where cooking
fuels are not as easily available. There has been a move to the use
of briquettes in the developed world, where they are used to heat
industrial boilers in order to produce electricity from steam. The
briquettes are cofired with coal in order to create the heat
supplied to the boiler.
LIQUID FUELS
Natural Liquid Fuels
Crude petroleum, a complex volatile mixture of hydrocarbons with
some sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, and trace metals, is the largest
single source of energy in the world, accounting for approximately
35-40% (in oil equivalents) of the energy consumed in the world. It
is also the building block for a large number of chemical products
consumed globally.
Prepared or Manufactured Liquid Fuels
Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation,
either as a distillate or a residue at the oil refinery. Broadly
speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned
in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an
engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash
point of approximately +40 C and oils burned in cotton or wool-wick
burners. In this sense, diesel is a type of fuel oil. Fuel oil is
made of long hydrocarbon chains, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes
and aromatics. The term fuel oil is also used in a stricter sense
to refer only to the heaviest commercial fuel that can be obtained
from crude oil, heavier than gasoline and naphtha.
Fuel oil in the United States is classified into six classes,
according to its boiling temperature, composition and purpose. The
boiling point, ranging from 175 to 600 C, and carbon chain length,
20 to 70 atoms, of the fuel increases with number. Viscosity also
increases with fuel oil number and the heaviest oil has to be
heated to get it to flow. Price usually decreases as the fuel
number increases.No. 1 fuel oil, No. 2 fuel oil (heating oil), and
No. 3 fuel oil are referred to as distillate fuel oils, diesel fuel
oils, light fuel oils, gasoil or just distillate. For example, No.
2 fuel oil, No. 2 distillate and No. 2 diesel fuel oil are almost
the same thing. Diesel is different in that it also has a cetane
number limit which describes the ignition quality of the fuel.
Distillate fuel oils are distilled from crude oil.
Gasoline or petrol is a derivative product of crude
oil/petroleum. It is derived during fractional distillation process
and has a translucent liquid form. It's not used in its crude form.
Different additives are added like ethanol to use it as fuel for
passenger vehicles. In the US and Latin countries, term gasoline is
used, but in Europe and Asian countries it's called petrol. Majorly
all around the world gasoline is used as fuel for vehicles. It's
one of the main products, which is consumed heavily worldwide.
Kerosene is typically pale yellow or colourless and has a
not-unpleasant characteristic odour. It is obtained from petroleum
and is used for burning in kerosene lamps and domestic heaters or
furnaces, as a fuel or fuel component for jet engines, and as a
solvent for greases and insecticides. Kerosene is widely used to
power jet engines of aircraft (jet fuel) and some rocket engines,
and is also commonly used as a cooking and lighting fuel and for
fire toys such as poi. In parts of Asia, where the price of
kerosene is subsidized, it fuels outboard motors on small fishing
boats. Kerosene lamps are widely used for lighting in rural areas
of Asia and Africa where electrical distribution is not available
or too costly for widespread use.
Alcohol is any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional
group (OH) is bound to a saturated carbon atom. The term alcohol
originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol (ethyl alcohol),
the predominant alcohol in alcoholic beverages. Some alcohols,
mainly ethanol and methanol, can be used as an alcohol fuel. Fuel
performance can be increased in forced induction internal
combustion engines by injecting alcohol into the air intake after
the turbocharger or supercharger has pressurized the air. This
cools the pressurized air, providing a denser air charge, which
allows for more fuel, and therefore more power.
Coal tar is a brown or black liquid of extremely high viscosity.
Coal tar is among the by-products when coal is carbonized to make
coke or gasified to make coal gas. Coal tars are complex and
variable mixtures of phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs), and heterocyclic compounds. Coal tar was subjected to
fractional distillation to recover various products, including,
tar, for roads benzole, a motor fuel creosote, a wood
preservative phenol, used in the manufacture of plastics cresols,
disinfectants
GASEOUS FUELS
Natural gas is one of the cleanest, safest, and most useful
forms of energy in our day-to-day lives. Natural gas is a
hydrocarbon, which means it is made up of compounds of hydrogen and
carbon. The simplest hydrocarbon is methane; it contains one carbon
atom and four hydrogen atoms. Natural gas can be found by itself or
in association with oil. It is both colourless and odourless and is
in fact a mixture of hydrocarbons. While mainly methane, the other
hydrocarbons include ethane, propane, and butane. Water, oil,
sulphur, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other impurities may be
mixed with the gas when it comes out of the ground. These
impurities are removed before the natural gas is delivered to our
homes and businesses.
Prepared or Manufactured Gaseous Fuels
Blast furnace gas is a by-product of blast furnaces where iron
ore is reduced with coke into metallic (pig) iron. The gas has a
very low heating value of around 0.9kWh/Nm^3, which on its own is
typically not high enough for combustion in a gas engine. There is
the possibility to blend this gas with other off gases and you
should contact your local Clarke Energy office to discuss in more
depth. Blast Furnace Gas is generated at higher pressure and at
about 100150 C (212302 F) in a modern Blast Furnace. This pressure
is utilized to operate a generator (Top-gas-pressure Recovery
Turbine - i.e. TRT in short), which can generate electrical energy
up to 35 kwh/t of pig iron without burning any fuel. Dry type TRTs
can generate more power than wet type TRT.
Coke oven gas is an abundant by-product of coverting coal into
coke used in steel production. But the impurities it contains make
it unsuitable for use as fuel or feedstock. It enables the recovery
of a wide range of other coal by-products, which, when marketed,
make the production of coke even more cost-effective. The main
product of a dedicated gas treatment unit, the treated coke oven
gas, is used as fuel gas although it can also be used as a
feedstock for the production of chemical products.
Blue gas is not blue, but has a rather water-like color. It was
stored in steel cylinders for shipment and had the advantage that
it possessed the highest specific energy of all artificially
produced gases, but unlike coal gas, it was free from carbon
monoxide. It had several advantages over liquid fuels such as
gasoline. It was non-explosive, and because it weighed
approximately the same as air, burning it and replacing its volume
with air did not lighten the airship, eliminating the need to
adjust buoyancy or ballast in-flight. Blue gas contains about 50%
olefins (alkenes), 37% methane and other alkanes, 6% hydrogen and
the rest is air. The heat of combustion is 122 MJ/m3
Producer gas is the mixture of combustible and non-combustible
gases. The quantity of gases constituents of producer gas depends
upon the type of fuel and operating condition. The heating value of
producer gas vary from 4.5 to 6 MJ/m3 depending upon the quantity
of its constituents. Carbon monoxide is produced from the reduction
of carbon dioxide and its quantity varies from 15 to 30% by volume
basis. Although carbon monoxide posses higher octane number of 106,
its ignition speed is low. This gas is toxic in nature. Hence,
human operator need to careful while handling gas.
