Analysis of the Environmental Effects of the Burning of the Straw for Energy Purposes

Abstract

Long-term using of fossil fuels has caused global climatic changes. Using of the renewable energy sources based on the field crop biomass can be considered as a tool allowing compensating the negative consequences of the fossil fuels. Among different types of biomass based fuels the straw baled in the form of square bales plays an important role. Until now the research pays only small attention to the environmental effects related to the using of the straw for energy purposes.

The aim of the paper was to analyze the effect of moisture content of the straw used for energy purposes. The straw has been baled to the form of large square bales. The straw bales were burned in special boiler. The quality of incineration process was monitored for different straw moisture content and also from the point of amount of CO2, CO, NO2, NO emissions which were released during the incineration process.

Based on the experimental results, we can confirm that the increased straw moisture content (15.9%) there were obtained  lower values of concentrations of emissions, but the process of burning was significantly slower. There was a longer burning of the same amount of the straw material. It means that the total amount of emissions released from the combustion of material with higher moisture content is equal to the emissions produced during combustion of dry straw. In conclusion it can be stated that the handling of straw bales and the method of bales storage affect straw moisture content, which then affects the quality of combustion in terms of the amount of energy gained.