Comparative Analysis of Emissions of Harmful Substances in Using Alternative to Natural Gas Biofuels

Abstract

Feature of the topic and problem statement. The paper presents for the first time a comparative characteristic of emissions of harmful substances from the combustion of traditional fuels (natural gas) and biomass in fuel furnaces of boilers and recommended for the use the most environmentally efficient fuels. Comparative characteristics of emissions of harmful substances during the combustion of various types of fuel allows to determine the optimal type of fuel in the construction and commission of a new power plants, and also adds up-to-date information that will be useful in the scientific and scientific-popular discussions that are widespread today regarding the exhaustion and replacement of non-renewable energy sources, the safety of alternative fuels and their advantages in comparison with non-renewable ones. The purpose of the work is determining of the amount of emissions of harmful substsnces entering the environment during the combustion of natural gas and solid alternative fuels - wood waste, straw, flax straw and sunflower husk, their comparison, justification of calculation of the carbon content in the fuel of a given chemical composition. Findings. During the comparative analysis, high values for the carbon dioxide emissions for all the materials were considered. It is also noted that there are no emissions of suspended solid particles and sulfur diоxide during the combustion of natural gas and it is determined that at its combustion, methane emissions will be the smallest. In as-sessing the level of safety when using unrenewable and alternative fuels, the higher content of methane, dinitrogen oxide and unmethane volatile organic compounds and the lower content of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide in emissions from combustion of alternative fuels compared to emissions at combustion of unrenewable fuels were determined during the calculations. When burning natural gas there is mercury in small amounts in the emissions. Originality. The paper presents for the first time a comparative characteristic of emissions of harmful substances from the combustion of traditional fuels (natural gas and fuel oil) and biomass in fuel furnaces of boilers and recommended for the use the most environmentally efficient fuels. When making calculation works the following regularities are defined. In unrenewable and alternative fuels, a higher proportion of carbon passes into carbon dioxide emission and less to carbon oxide emission, while proportion of carbon in carbon dioxide emission is higher in unrenewable fuels. In addition, in unre-newable and alternative fuels, a large proportion of nitrogen is converted into nitrogen oxide emission, and less in emission of dinitrogen oxide, while the proportion of nitrogen in the emission of nitrogen oxide is also higher in unrenewable fuels. The paper defines a formula for calculating the carbon content in natural gas from the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline. The provided calculations and the introduction of simplified formulas serve as an example for the calculation of emis-sion factors and emissions in assessing the level of safety of existing equipment and can be used in the development of permit documents of enterprises that carry out emissions of harmful substances to the environment.