Clean Thermal Utilization of Solid Carbon-Based Fuels

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2026 | Viewed by 356

Special Issue Editors


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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

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

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Keywords

  • solid carbon-based fuels
  • composition
  • clean thermal utilization
  • products utilization
  • process
  • economic

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

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 269
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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