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Fire
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Effective Strategies for Solid Fuel Combustion Optimization and Pollutant Control
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Effective Strategies for Solid Fuel Combustion Optimization and Pollutant Control

A special issue of Fire (ISSN 2571-6255). This special issue belongs to the section "Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Simulation of Combustion and Fire".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 2462

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Wenkun Zhu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Engler-Bunte-Institute, Combustion Technology (EBI-VBT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Interests: laser diagnostics; imaging and algorithm; gas/solid combustion; energy materials; turbulence and modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Rui Sun

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
Interests: clean biomass/coal combustion; syngas combustion and reaction kinetics; low NOx combustion; numerical simulation
Dr. Zhuozhi Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China
Interests: high efficiency and clean utilization technology of solid fuels
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Solid fuel combustion—encompassing coal, biomass, municipal solid waste, and derived chars—remains central to heat and power production, industrial processing, and emerging negative emissions concepts. Yet, high conversion efficiency and stringent air-quality targets are often in tension due to complex, multiscale coupling among devolatilization, char oxidation/gasification, turbulent mixing, heat transfer, mineral transformations, and pollutant formation (NOx, SOx, PM, tar/soot, trace metals). Rapid advances in laser/optical diagnostics, high-fidelity simulations (RANS/LES/DNS with detailed/reduced chemistry), and data-driven methods (PINNs, digital twins) now enable mechanism-informed optimization and robust emission control across furnaces, boilers, and fluidized beds. This Special Issue brings together these strands to showcase strategies that deliver cleaner, more reliable, and cost-effective solid-fuel systems during the energy transition.

The aim is to curate contributions that (i) elucidate fundamental physicochemical pathways governing efficiency and emissions in solid-fuel flames and reactive flows, and (ii) translate this understanding into practical optimization and control methods. The scope aligns directly with Fire’s interests in combustion fundamentals, fire chemistry, diagnostics, suppression/mitigation of harmful products, and scalable modeling of reactive systems. We particularly welcome studies that bridge laboratory insights with pilot/industrial deployment and that provide actionable guidance for pollutant abatement and system design.

(1) Fuel preparation and co-firing strategies (biomass/coal/MSW), particle size/moisture effects, mixing and residence-time control. (2) Oxy-fuel, staged/low-NOx, MILD/flameless, pressurized, and circulating/fluidized-bed combustion; EGR and reburning. (3) Pollutant pathways and control: NOx/SOx formation and reduction, PM/soot/ash, slagging and fouling, trace species (e.g., Hg/Cl). (4) In situ/quantitative diagnostics (PLIF, LIBS, LII, PIV, Raman, TDLAS), tomography, and multi-modal data fusion. (5) Modeling and simulation: detailed/reduced chemistry, coal/biomass conversion models, coupled RANS/LES/DNS, uncertainty quantification. (6) Data-driven approaches: surrogate modeling, PINNs, Bayesian calibration, optimization and real-time control, digital twins. (7) Integration with carbon capture (oxy-combustion, chemical looping), techno-economic analysis, and life-cycle assessment. (8) Benchmark datasets, validation campaigns, and best-practice protocols bridging lab, pilot, and full-scale units.

Dr. Wenkun Zhu
Prof. Dr. Rui Sun
Dr. Zhuozhi Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • solid-fuel combustion
  • biomass, coal, waste etc.
  • pollutant formation and control
  • low-NOx & oxy/MILD combustion
  • sata-driven machine learning
  • advanced diagnostics

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

34 pages, 14501 KB  
Article
Impact of Fire Source Locations and Ventilation Strategies on Indoor Environments: An FDS Simulation Study
by Dan-Adrian Ionescu, Vlad Iordache, Iulian-Cristian Ene and Ion Anghel
Fire 2026, 9(1), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire9010022 - 30 Dec 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1262
Abstract
This paper analyzes smoke control strategies in high-rise building stairwells, with particular focus on their application to existing buildings without smoke exhaust openings at the top of the stairwell. This study is necessary to support the optimization of fire safety in a wide [...] Read more.
This paper analyzes smoke control strategies in high-rise building stairwells, with particular focus on their application to existing buildings without smoke exhaust openings at the top of the stairwell. This study is necessary to support the optimization of fire safety in a wide range of existing high-rise buildings in Bucharest, Romania, where stairwells operate without upper smoke vents. The scientific challenge addressed is the comparative evaluation of natural ventilation and mechanical pressurization applied at the lower part of the stairwell in order to assess their influence on smoke and heat propagation. The motivation of this work is related to emergency response, as firefighters require a clear understanding of smoke movement and evacuation conditions depending on the fire location and ventilation mode. Three-dimensional CFD simulations were performed, using a fire source validated against experimental data, to analyze temperature, pressure, airflow velocity, visibility, and toxic gas concentration for different fire-floor locations. The results show that natural ventilation alone is ineffective, while single-point mechanical pressurization improves conditions only during the early fire stage. The findings contribute to better-informed firefighter decision-making by clarifying stairwell conditions during intervention in existing high-rise buildings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effective Strategies for Solid Fuel Combustion Optimization and Pollutant Control)
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26 pages, 14790 KB  
Article
Full-Scale Experimental Stand Development with HRR Determination from Mass Loss and CFD Model Validation
by Mihai Dima, Iulian-Cristian Ene, Vlad Iordache and Florin Ioan Bode
Fire 2026, 9(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire9010001 - 19 Dec 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 853
Abstract
Accurate prediction of urban air quality during fire events is frequently limited by the lack of experimentally validated source terms. Current pollution dispersion models often rely on idealized input parameters that fail to capture the complex thermal and chemical dynamics of real-world indoor [...] Read more.
Accurate prediction of urban air quality during fire events is frequently limited by the lack of experimentally validated source terms. Current pollution dispersion models often rely on idealized input parameters that fail to capture the complex thermal and chemical dynamics of real-world indoor fires. Addressing this gap, this study presents an experiment which reproduces an office-type fire using a wooden crib with a calibrated thermal load, enabling accurate determination of the HRR through the mass loss rate method. Temperature evolution was monitored with 27 thermocouples positioned across five vertical planes, while toxic gas concentrations were measured near the upper boundary of the exterior opening. The experimental data were used to calibrate and validate the numerical model, with HRR representing the primary parameter and temperature and toxic gas concentrations serving secondary validation metrics. Quantitative comparison showed good agreement between the experimental and simulated trends, with acceptable prediction errors and consistent reproduction of the dominant physical mechanisms governing fire development, ventilation-driven flow, and pollutant accumulation. Overall, the combined experimental–numerical approach provides a validated framework for future simulations on larger and more complex geometries, ensuring reliable input parameters for urban-scale fire scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effective Strategies for Solid Fuel Combustion Optimization and Pollutant Control)
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