Bio fuel boilers produce relatively clean smoke emissions compared to traditional coal fired plants. The emissions pass through a series of filters, including electrostatic precipitators, wet scrubbers and filter bags. At this point the exhaust gas is emitted to the atmosphere via a chimney stack which can be up to 5 metres in diameter for an industrial system.
For this application the Acoem DSL-220 opacity emission monitor is ideally suited to continuously monitor the combustion filtration systems employed when a biomass boiler is operational. If the performance of the filter system deteriorates, the Acoem monitor will instantly report an increase in emissions, enabling the plant operators to take swift remedial action and service the filter system. The opacity data collected over time can be used to schedule preventative filter maintenance.
A major advantage of DDP over opacity measurements is that the signal is almost independent of the mean transmission value. As a result, maintenance periods can be extended because the instrument can tolerate higher levels of optical contamination and greater optical misalignment before the measurement sensitivity is adversely affected. This can help reduce costs and downtime.
