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Processes
Special Issues
Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels
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Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels

A Special Issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717) belonging to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2026) | Viewed by 3157

Editors

Dr. Qiangqiang Ren

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Interests: carbon-based fuels; solid waste; biomass; thermal conversion; emission; resource
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Hao Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Interests: carbon-based fuels; thermal utilization; pollutant removal; resource utilization; high-efficiency utilization technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Solid carbon-based fuels are highly relevant to developed society, and their amounts are huge. Solid carbon-based fuels typically consist of coal, biomass, and organic solid waste (tire, plastic, etc.), and they are commonly employed in electricity and chemical industries. Coal, biomass, and organic solid wastes typically consist of C, H, O, N, S, and others, and they are regarded as carriers of energy and resource. In addition, their usage is also relevant to CO2, SOx, and NOx emissions. Therefore, the development and utilization of high-efficiency and low-emission solid carbon-based fuels are promising for the future.

Combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis are valuable thermal utilization methods for solid carbon-based fuels, and they can be clean. In addition, there are still other clean and valuable studies in the energy and chemistry fields for developing relevant technologies.

This Special Issue on “Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels” intends to present examples of the clean thermal utilization of solid carbon-based fuels. Topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Composition analysis of solid carbon-based fuels;
  • Clean thermal utilization method and mechanism;
  • Clean thermal reactor design and optimization;
  • Products utilization and mechanism;
  • Process analysis and optimization;
  • Economic analysis and guidance;

Dr. Qiangqiang Ren
Dr. Hao Wu
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 carbon-based fuels
  • composition
  • clean thermal utilization
  • products utilization
  • process
  • economic

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 6210 KB  
Article
Ca(OH)2-Modified White Mud Sorbent with Enhanced Performance for SO2 Removal from Flue Gas
by Hongyu Wang, Jianpeng Wei, Ye Wu, Chaohu Xiang, Li Yu, Lijian Jin, Wenrui Li, Hang Yu, Yitao Gan and Danping Pan
Processes 2026, 14(7), 1058; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14071058 - 26 Mar 2026
Viewed by 721
Abstract
The efficient utilization of industrial waste (containing alkaline compounds, especially Ca-based species) for flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is of great importance for both environmental protection and resource recovery. In this study, paper industry white mud was modified with Ca(OH)2 to develop a [...] Read more.
The efficient utilization of industrial waste (containing alkaline compounds, especially Ca-based species) for flue gas desulfurization (FGD) is of great importance for both environmental protection and resource recovery. In this study, paper industry white mud was modified with Ca(OH)2 to develop a cost-effective sorbent with enhanced SO2 removal performance. Optimization experiments identified the best preparation conditions as a 1:1 Ca(OH)2/white mud ratio, 60 °C modification temperature, 6 h reaction time, and a liquid-to-solid ratio of 3:1. Under these conditions, the sorbent achieved nearly 100% SO2 removal in the first 6 h and maintained >90% efficiency after 10 h, significantly outperforming raw white mud and Ca(OH)2 alone. Characterization revealed that the superior performance originated from structural stability and abundant active sites. BET analysis showed a high surface area (24.8 m2·g−1) and pore volume (0.160 cm3·g−1), which were largely preserved after desulfurization, indicating resistance to pore blockage. SEM images confirmed a transition from porous aggregates to densified product layers, consistent with a shrinking-core/product-layer mechanism. XRD identified CaSO4·2H2O as the dominant product, while in situ FTIR demonstrated that O2 promotes sulfite oxidation and H2O accelerates hydrated sulfate formation, enhancing activity but causing faster pore blocking. The presence of NO extended sorbent durability by catalyzing continuous sulfite oxidation through NO/NO2 redox cycling. Overall, Ca(OH)2-modified white mud combines high reactivity, durability, and structural stability, offering a promising alternative to conventional sorbents. This work provides a viable route for the resource utilization of paper industry waste and practical insights for designing efficient and sustainable materials for industrial FGD systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels)
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17 pages, 3611 KB  
Article
Numerical Simulation of the Discharge Process in Pulverized Coal Silos Based on a Coarse-Grained DEM Method
by Zhiyong Zhang, Tianxiao Chen, Xiao Zhang, Zhaoxi Liu, Yi Wang, Dong Li, Xiaole Chen, Kaixin Dai, Huaichen Li and Chun Ge
Processes 2026, 14(5), 833; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14050833 - 4 Mar 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 843
Abstract
The traditional Discrete Element Method (DEM) can track the motion details of individual particles, but its computational cost becomes excessively high when simulating large-scale systems involving millions or even billions of particles. In this study, a coarse-grained DEM approach was employed to analyze [...] Read more.
The traditional Discrete Element Method (DEM) can track the motion details of individual particles, but its computational cost becomes excessively high when simulating large-scale systems involving millions or even billions of particles. In this study, a coarse-grained DEM approach was employed to analyze the flow behavior of mixed particles in a coal powder silo. This method maintains reasonable simulation accuracy while effectively reducing the total number of computational particles and significantly improving computational efficiency. After conducting investigations on the mesh-to-particle size ratio and model validation, this paper focuses on examining the effects of coal particle size distribution and mixing ratio on the characteristics of particle motion. The results indicate that during the discharge process of mixed particles, the downward velocity of particles in the central axis region near the outlet is significantly higher than that in the wall region, exhibiting typical funnel flow characteristics. The particle size distribution has a notable impact on the particle descent velocity. The uniform distribution case shows the highest descent velocity, the linear distribution case the lowest, while the normal distribution case falls between the two. Notably, in the normal distribution case, the descent velocity in the central axis region is similar to that of the uniform distribution, while the descent velocity in the wall region approaches that of the linear distribution. This presents a combined characteristic of the two extreme distributions rather than a simple transitional state. In contrast, the particle mixing ratio has a relatively minor influence on the overall motion characteristics. The mass flow rate of particles and the cross-sectional velocity distribution remain largely consistent, with only slight differences observed in the velocity within the central axis region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels)
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12 pages, 1589 KB  
Article
Analysis of Fuel Properties for Fifty Kinds of Typical Alternative Fuels
by Yanpeng Guo, Jinhui Yu, Wenjie Rui, Qiangqiang Ren, Hao Wu, Hewei Wang, Yanlong Zhang and Jiajia Jiang
Processes 2025, 13(9), 2767; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13092767 - 29 Aug 2025
Viewed by 1060
Abstract
With CO2 generation and emissions requirements, the cement industry faces huge pressure for reducing carbon emissions. Choosing alternative fuels instead of coal is a promising approach. However, the fuel properties of the alternative fuels have not been comprehensively studied. In this work, [...] Read more.
With CO2 generation and emissions requirements, the cement industry faces huge pressure for reducing carbon emissions. Choosing alternative fuels instead of coal is a promising approach. However, the fuel properties of the alternative fuels have not been comprehensively studied. In this work, the fifty typical alternative fuels were selected based on the compositions for different classifications, and the basic fuel properties including proximate analysis, ultimate analysis, and low calorific values were analyzed. Most fuels from plastics and clothes have relatively low moisture; the values of as-received basis moisture (Mar) and air-dry basis moisture (Mad) of the others are all lower than 30 wt%. However, the alternative fuels of plastic and cloth all have relatively high contents of air-dry basis volatile compounds (Vad) (>60 wt%), and they all have low contents of air-dry basis fixed carbon (FCad) (commonly <20 wt%) and air-dry basis ash (Aad) (<30 wt%). The air-dry basis carbon contents (Cad) of plastics are higher than 40 wt%, while the Cad values of biomass are lower than 50 wt%. As for air-dry basis hydrogen (Had), the contents are all lower than 14 wt% and relatively stable for different kinds of alternative fuels. As for air-dry basis nitrogen (Nad), the contents are all lower than 9 wt%, and most of them are lower than 3 wt%. In addition, the contents of air-dry basis sulfur (Sad) of different alternative fuels are also lower than 3 wt%, while plastics, biomass, and clothes are all lower than 1 wt%. Also, the low calorific values (Qnet,ar) for the alternative fuels of plastic are commonly high, and the values for biomass are commonly between 500 and 1500 kJ/kg, while Qnet,ar values for the alternative fuels of cloth and others vary. The fuel properties of the fifty typical alternative fuels can guide fuel selection and optimization when they are mixed for combustion with coals in cement decomposition furnaces. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels)
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