• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.461-468
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• 2014

Biochar is a carbon rich solid produced by the pyrolysis of biomass such as energy crops, forestry residues, and wood wastes. Biochar returned to soil is to mitigate climate change and the feedstock of wood wastes reduces fossil fuel consumption as well as disposal costs. This study was practiced to evaluate a biochar system by gasification in terms of global warming regarding the soil application of the produced biochar. Life cycle assessment methodology was used to analyze the environmental impacts of the system, and the functional unit was 1 tonne of wood wastes. The result shows that the biochar system by using wood wastes as feedstock produces 4.048E-01 $kgCO_2-eq$ from the pre-treatment process as chipping and drying, 4.579E-01 $kgCO_2-eq$ from the pyrolysis process, and 9.070E-02 $kgCO_2-eq$ from the spreading to agricultural land, therefore total 9.534E-01 $kgCO_2-eq$ are generated. About 252 kg of $CO_2$ is still stored in the produced biochar in soil after carbon offsetting of the system. Therefore, the net carbon of the system is -251 kg of $CO_2-eq$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.8
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• pp.683-691
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• 2015

Circulating Fluidized Bed(CFB) combustion has the several advantages which are the fuel flexibility, the economy, the efficiency and the environment. It is necessary to apply a renewable energy to produce electricity due to the Renewable Portfolio Standard(RPS) mandates recently. So, in this study, co-combustion with a coal and a wood pellet was investigated to evaluate the combustibility and the environment as function of blending ratio of them in a Lab-scale CFB reactor. To investigate the characteristics of the co-combustion, the blending ratio which is the weight of wood pellet by the total calorific value of the supplied, was considered. Bed material was a river sand(No. 7). As increasing the blending ratio, the exhausted gas emissions such as CO, NOx, HC and SOx were decreased. But in case of wood pellet over 30%, CO, HC and SOx emission were increased. And the gas temperatures at the downstream were decreased.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2014

This paper presents the implementation of a control system of pellet boiler using wood pellet as carbon neutral material. The system also has the additional features to provide remote controlling and monitoring based on home networking technology through either public switched telephone networks or mobile communication networks. It consists of three kinds of sub-modules; a main controller provides basic and additional features such as a setting of temperature, a supplying of wood pellet, a controlling of ignition and fire-power, and a removing of soot. The second is temperature controller of individual rooms which is connected to the main controller through RS-485 links. And interface modules with PSTN and mobile networks can support remote controlling and monitoring the functions. The test results under the heating area of $172m^2$ show a thermal efficiency of 93.6%, a heating power of 20,640kcal/hr, and a fuel consumption of 5.54kg/hr. These results are superior to those of the conventional pellet boilers. In order to obtain the such high performance, we newly applied a 3-step ignition flow, a flame detection by $C_dS$ sensor, and a fire-power control by fine controlling of shutter to our pellet boiler.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.538-544
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• 2014

A traditional fireplace has been used, but not much, for heating and cooking in rural area, Korea. Traditional fireplace as one type of biomass burnings is also emitting various air pollutants. Air pollutants emission from traditional fireplace was estimated in this study. There are two types of traditional fireplace, one for combined heating and cooking, the other one for cooking only. Types of fuels mostly used in traditional fireplace were wood, agricultural residue, solid waste. Activity levels such as fuel types, amount of fuel loading, and temporal variation were investigated by field survey over Korea. Estimated annual emissions from traditional fireplace were CO 6,335.0, NOx 555.0, SOx 9.6, VOC 1,771.7, TSP 181.4, $PM_{10}$ 119.9, $PM_{2.5}$ 96.2, $NH_3$ 1.4 ton/yr respectively. When emissions compared with the national emission inventory (CAPSS: Clean Air Policy Support System) of 2010 year, CO and $PM_{10}$ occupy 0.8% and 0.1% of total national emission, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.179-190
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• 1992

This study was carried out to characterize sources of atmospheric total suspended particulates (TSP) in urban and sub--urban areas of metropolitan taegu. The sources were tentatively identified by a multivariate technique, i.e. principal component analysis (PCA), and the source contributions to the atmospheric concentrations of TSP were further estimated by stepwise multiple regression analysis. A total of 5 sources was identified in the urban area of Taegu (soil dust resuspension, fuel combustion, secondary aerosol, traffic related aerosol, and refuge burning), while 4 sources were found to be significant in the sub--urban area as following: fuel combustion/secondary aerosol, soil dust resuspension, traffic related aerosol, and wood/agricultural burning. The largest contributor to the atmospheric TSP appeared to be the soil dust resuspension in both areas. The source apportionment of the extractable organic matter (EOM) was also carried out for the Taegu data. The EOM was determined with respect to the solvent polarity, i.e. cyclohexane (non-polar), dichloromethane (semi--polar), and acetone (polar). In addition, the source profiles for the TSP in Taegu area were estimated using a PCA-based algorithm, and the validity was evaluated tentatively by comparing the data in the literature.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.159-169
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• 2005

Cellulose, consisted of 45 wt% in wood, is usable as fuels and heavy oil additives if depolymerized to monomer unit, because the chemical structures are similar to high octane materials found in gasoline. In this study, thermochemical degradation by solvolysis reaction of cellulose such as the effect of reaction temperature, reaction time and type of solvent on conversion yield and degradation products were investigated. It was found that the effectiveness of the solvent on the sovolysis reaction was as follows; acetone>n-butanol>tetralin. When acetone was used as a solvent, the highest cellulose conversion was observed to be 91.8% at 500$^{\circ}C$, 40min. Combustion heating value of liquid products from thermochemical conversion processes was in the range of 7,330${\sim}$7,410cal/g. The energy yield and mass yield in acetone-solvolysis of cellulose was as high as 66.8% and 37.0 g oil/100g raw material after 40min of reaction at 400$^{\circ}C$. Various aliphatic and aromatic compounds were detected in the cellulose solvolysis products. The major components of the solvolysis products, that could be used as fuel, were mesityl oxide, mesitylene, isophorone.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.127-146
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• 2013

Torrefaction technologies convert assorted biomass feedstocks into energy-concentrated, carbon neutral fuel that is economically transported and easily ground for blending with fossil coals at numerous power plants around the world without needs to retrofit. Utilization of torrefied biomass in conventional electric generating units may be an increasingly attractive alternative for electricity generation as aging power plants in the world need to be upgraded or improved. This paper examines the economic feasibility of torrefaction in different scenarios by modeling torrefaction plants producing 136,078 t/year (150,000 ton/year) biocoal from wood and corn stover. The utilization of biocoal blends in existing coal-fired power plants is modeled to determine the demand for this fuel in the context of emerging policies regulating emissions from coal in the U.S. setting. Opportunities to co-locate torrefaction facilities adjacent to corn ethanol plants and coal-fired power plants are explored as means to improve economics for collaborating businesses. Life cycle analysis was conducted in parallel to this economic study and was used to determine environmental impacts of converting biomass to biocoal for blending in coal-fired power plants as well as the use of substantial flows of off-gasses produced in the torrefaction process. Sensitivity analysis of the financial rates of return of the different businesses has been performed to measure impacts of different factors, whether input prices, output prices, or policy measures that render costs or rewards for the businesses.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2017

Co-firing of renewable fuel in coal fired boilers is an attractive option to mitigate $CO_2$ emissions, since it is a relatively low cost option for efficiently converting renewable fuel to electricity by adding biomass as partial substitute of coal. However, it would cause reducing plant efficiency and operational flexibility, and increasing operation and capital cost associated with handling and firing equipment of renewable fuels. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of biomass co-firing on $CO_2$ emission and capital/operating cost. Wood pellet, PKS (palm kernel shell), EFB (empty fruit bunch) and sludge are considered as renewable fuels for co-firing with coal. Several approaches by the co-firing ratio are chosen from previous plant demonstrations and commercial co-firing operation, and they are evaluated and discussed for $CO_2$ reduction and cost estimation.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2019

Spontaneous combustion propensity of various coals of carbonization grade as a pulverized fuel of coal-fired power plant has been tested from an initial temperature of $25^{\circ}C$ to $600^{\circ}C$ by heating in an oven with air to analyze the self-oxidation starting temperature. These tests produce CPT (Cross Point Temperature), IT (Ignition temperature), and CPS (Cross Point Slope) calculated as the slope of time taken for a rapid exothermic oxidation reaction at CPT base. CPS shows a carbonization rank dependence whereby wood pellet has the highest propensity to spontaneous combustion of $20.995^{\circ}C/min$. A sub-bituminous KIDECO coal shows a CPS value of $15.370^{\circ}C/min$, whereas pet coke has the highest carbonization rank at $2.950^{\circ}C/min$. The nature of this trend is most likely attributable to a concentration of volatile matter and oxygen functional groups of coal surface that governs the available component for oxidation, as well as surface area of fuel char, and constant pressure molar heat.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2019

Biomass, a carbon-neutral fuel, has great advantages because it can replace fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, due to its low density, high water content, and hydrophilicity, biomass has disadvantages for transportation and storage. To improve these properties, a pretreatment process of biomass is required. One of the various pre-treatment technologies, torrefacion, makes biomass similar to coal through low-temperature pyrolysis. In this study, torrefacion treatment was carried out at 200, 230, 250, 280, and $300^{\circ}C$ for wood pellet, empty fruit bunch (EFB) and kenaf, and the feasibility of replacing coal with fuel was examined. Hygroscopicity tests were conducted to analyze the hydrophobicity of biomass, and its chemical structure changes were investigated using Infrared spectrum analysis. It was confirmed that the hygroscopicity was decreased gradually as the torrefacion temperature increased according to the hygroscopicity tests. The hydrophilicity was reduced according to the pyrolysis of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin of biomass.