Development of Biomass-to-Energy Technologies in Ukraine

Mr. Georgiy Geletukha is a director of the Scientific Engineering Centre “Biomass” in Kiev, Ukraine. He also heads the Bioenergy Laboratory at the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, NAS of Ukraine and is a Chairman of the board at NGO "Renewable Energy Agency".

His first proposal is a wood-fired boiler with underfeed retort. The retort has extended zone for complete burning of coke-ash rest on grate. It is possible, with this technology, to combust low-quality wood waste, and has an acceptable level of emission form the boiler. The feeder has an original design which avoids blockage by the fuel.

The straw-fired boiler technology is a hot water batch straw-fired boiler with retort-grate furnace intended for the combustion of small bales of straw. Structurally, the boiler consists of three sections. The lower section is a cylindrical tank with built-in furnace. The heat exchange surface is a tube bundle located in the upper part of the furnace. The lower section is interlinked with the second section by circulation pipes for natural circulation of water. The second section is a heat accumulating tank. An open expansion tank is located on top of this section. Capacity of the heat accumulating tank is adjustable and depends on the boiler capacity. The simplicity of boiler design results in high performance of the boiler, and the continuous exposure to the outside air results in high safety.

Mr. Geletukha also proposed an environmentally friendly technology for municipal solid waste (MSW) gasification. The 50kW experimental gasification unit consists of two fluid bed reactors – the gasifier itself and a combustion chamber. The main advantages of this technology in comparison with direct combustion are (1) its low formation of dioxins and furans, (2) comparatively simple and cheap gas cleaning system, (3) the generation of producer gas suitable for power production.

Last is the fast pyrolysis technology based on ablative reactor of the screw type. The technology is simpler to implement and has very high yield of pyrolysis oil which has lower water content. With the new ablative reactor, it is possible to create a mobile pyrolysis unit which operates on raw material with rather large particles.