Table Of ContentAshok K. Singh · Reginald Ebhin Masto ·
Bodhisatwa Hazra · Joan Esterle ·
Pradeep K. Singh
Ash
from Coal
and Biomass
Combustion
Ash from Coal and Biomass Combustion
Ashok K. Singh Reginald Ebhin Masto
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Bodhisatwa Hazra Joan Esterle
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Pradeep K. Singh
Ash from Coal and Biomass
Combustion
123
Ashok K.Singh ReginaldEbhin Masto
Council of ScientificandIndustrial Council of ScientificandIndustrial
Research—Central Institute of Mining Research—Central Institute of Mining
andFuelResearch andFuelResearch
Dhanbad, Jharkhand,India Dhanbad, Jharkhand,India
Bodhisatwa Hazra JoanEsterle
Council of ScientificandIndustrial Schoolof EarthandEnvironmental Science
Research—Central Institute of Mining University of Queensland
andFuelResearch St Lucia, QLD,Australia
Dhanbad, Jharkhand,India
Pradeep K.Singh
Council of ScientificandIndustrial
Research—Central Institute of Mining
andFuelResearch
Dhanbad, Jharkhand,India
ISBN978-3-030-56980-8 ISBN978-3-030-56981-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56981-5
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Coal and Biomass: More than just energy
resources
Preface
Generationofhugeamountsofashfromcombustionofcoalandbiomassinpower
plants is a major concern for the environmental managers and technologists of the
plants. China, India, USA, Japan, and Korea are the major coal producers of the
world. Recentregulations inmany countries demand100% utilization oftheashes
produced after combustion for generating energy. The heterogeneous nature of the
coal and biomass ashes, wide varieties of the utilization options available, and the
environmental issues associated with the ash made the subject of ash very inter-
esting and challenging. Our research on coals and biomass from various perspec-
tivesinrecentyearshasledustorealizethatalthoughasubstantialbodyofresearch
has built-up over many decades especially on their combustion aspects, a com-
prehensive discussion with these two resources together in a same platform has
been missing. Such realization has stimulated us to compile this monograph.
The full domain of coal and biomass ash is presented in the book, under five
chapters. The purpose of the monograph is to give a fundamental understanding
of the ash properties, generation, bulk and value-added utilization sectors, and the
environmental issues. This piece of work would be a valuable repository for wide
spectrum of audience covering students, managers, environmentalists, and policy
makersassociatedwithashandenvironment.Inaddition,thiscompilationofallthe
informationonashwillhelptheresearchers togetaquickoverviewonthesubject
matter.
We introduce the subject in Chap. 1 covering the importance of coal-based
energy and the science behind the ash generation in power plants. Both coal and
biomass generate ash of very distinct nature, volume, and properties. The detailed
characterizationcoveringphysical,chemical,andotherspecialpropertiesoftheash
aredetailedinChap.2.Thedifferentoptionsavailablefortheuseofashalongwith
the basic minimum description of all the utilization sectors and the suitability of
ashes for each sector are discussed in Chap. 3. Chapter 4 addresses the environ-
mentalissuesassociatedwiththeflyashusealongwiththebasicchemistriesofthe
origin of potentially toxic elements in ash, their leachability and potential hazard,
and finally the long-term fate of the ash and the different abatement options
vii
viii Preface
available to decrease the environmental concerns. The key outcome of this com-
pilation is summarized in Chap. 5.
Wehopethismonographwouldbeaninterestingcontributioninthefieldofcoal
and biomass ash sectors, and excites the readers to think more about ash.
Dhanbad, India Pradeep K. Singh
June 2020
AcknowledgementsTheDirector,CSIR-CentralInstituteofMiningandFuelResearch,Indiais
acknowledged for granting permission to publish this work, and also for providing necessary
infrastructuretocarry-outthework.
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Genesis and Characteristics of Coal and Biomass Ash . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Generation of Coal Combustion Residues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Generation of Biomass Ash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Characterization of Coal and Biomass Ash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1 Particle Size Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.2 Surface Area and Porosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.3 Major Oxide Composition of Ash Samples . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.4 Unburnt Carbon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Micro-morphology of Fly Ash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3 Utilization of Coal and Biomass Ash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2 Agriculture and Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.2.1 Impact of Ash on Soil Physical Properties of Soil . . . . . . . 38
3.2.2 Impact of Ash on Chemical Properties of Soil. . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.3 Impact of Ash on Biological Properties of Soil . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.4 Impact of Fly Ash on Plant-Growth and
Plant-Yield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3 Utilization of Fly Ash in Cement and Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.1 High Volume Fly Ash Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3.2 Roller-Compacted Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.3.3 Self-compacting Concrete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.4 Use of Biomass Ash in Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.5 Advantage of Using Fly Ash in Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3.6 Disadvantages of Using Fly Ash in Concrete . . . . . . . . . . 55
ix
x Contents
3.4 Bricks, Blocks, and Lightweight Aggregates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4.1 Bricks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4.2 Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4.3 Lightweight Aggregates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.5 Ceramic Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6 Road Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.7 Mine Backfilling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.8 Extraction of Value-Added Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.8.1 Cenosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.8.2 Unburnt Carbon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.8.3 Extraction of Rare Earth Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.8.4 Aerogels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.8.5 Zeolite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.9 Niche Areas of Ash Utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.9.1 Catalyst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.9.2 Adsorption of Toxic Elements and Organic
Compounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.9.3 Fertilizer from Ash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.9.4 Carbon Sequestration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4 Environmental Effects of Coal and Biomass Ash
Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1 Toxic Components in Ash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1.1 Organic Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1.2 Inorganic Pollutants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.1.3 Human Health Hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2 Leaching Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.3 Chemical Speciation and Weathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.4 Toxic Substance in Products Prepared from Ash . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.5 Abatement of Ash Toxicity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 1
Introduction
Abstract Coal,anaturallyoccurringlaminatedorganic-sedimentaryrock,hasbeen
asourceofenergyforseveraldecades.Beingcomposedofessentiallylithified-plant
materials,whichwereinitiallydepositedinswampyenvironments,coalisaunique
fossilfuelusedforavarietyofindustrialanddomesticpurposes.Likewise,biomass
isarenewablesolidfuelusedforelectricitygenerationandformeetingthedomestic
and industrial thermal energy needs. Energy extraction by combustion of coal and
biomassgenerateslargeamountofash,whichisasolidwaste.Thequantumofash
generatedfromcoalandbiomasssectorandtheirpotentialutilizationisdiscussedin
thischapter.
Coal,anaturallyoccurringlaminatedorganic-sedimentaryrock,hasbeenasourceof
energyformanysinceseveraldecades.Beingcomposedofessentiallylithified-plant
materials,whichwereinitiallydepositedinswampyenvironments,coalisaunique
fossilfuelusedforavarietyofindustrialanddomesticpurposes.Theprimaryuse
ofcoaltilldateistoproducesteamforelectricitygenerationthroughcombustion.
The major coal-producing countries across the world are China, India, USA,
Australia,andIndonesia.Coalismainlyusedforgenerationofelectricityinpower
plants.Country-wisecoalproduction duringtheyear 2018 (www.bp.com2019) is
giveninFig.1.1.Inspiteofthebloomofrenewableenergyresources,globally,coal
remainsasthemainsourceforelectricitygeneration.Worldwide,coalaccountsfor
anaveragecontributionof37%ofthetotalelectricitygeneration.Eversincefromthe
establishmentoffirstcommercialpowerplantintheyear1822atPearlStreetStation,
NewYork,USA,thecoal-basedelectricitygenerationhasdevelopedtremendously.
Currently, China, USA, India, Japan, and South Korea are the topmost coal-based
electricity-generatingcountries(Table1.1).
Coal, for some time now, has attracted the attention of several researchers and
policy makers due to its negative impact on atmosphere (Ward and Suárez-Ruiz
2008). While the importance of coal in meeting energy requirements is hardly
doubted,therisingCO levelsintheatmospherehasbeenapointofglobalconcern.
2
The contribution of coal combustion in CO release to the atmosphere has caught
2
the eyes of the world (World Coal Institute 2005; U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency2005;CommissionoftheEuropeanCommunities2005).Consequently,in
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A.K.Singhetal.,AshfromCoalandBiomassCombustion,
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