Numerical Simulation on Oxy-Fuel Combustion of Pulverized Coal and Raw Meal Decomposition in Precalciner under O2/CO2 Atmospheres

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  • 1. Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials Cycling and Pollution Control, School of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Mesoscience and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 
    3. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia 
    4. Sinoma International Intelligent Technology Co., LTD, Nanjing 210036, China

Online published: 2026-01-05

Supported by

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2022YFE0206600).

Copyright

Science Press, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025

Abstract

The cement sector significantly contributes to industrial CO2 emissions, and reducing the carbon emissions of the cement industry has become an urgent problem. Oxy-fuel combustion stands out as the greatest prospective technology in the carbon capture and storage field, with immense potential for achieving carbon reduction objectives. This study employs computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to investigate the characteristics of pulverized coal combustion and raw meal decomposition in a cement precalciner. Considering the influence of varying kinetic parameters of CaCO3 on a precalciner, the flow and temperature field distributions, species distributions, raw meal decomposition rate, and NOx generation under 21% O2/79% N2 and 21% O2/79% CO2 atmospheres were analyzed in detail. Results show that changing the combustion atmosphere from 21% O2/79% N2 to 21% O2/79% CO2 has no obvious effect on the flow field. However, the maximum temperature decreases; the NOx emissions are reduced by 19%, and the high concentration of CO2 in the flue gas simplifies the carbon capture process, helping to reduce energy consumption in the decarbonization of the cement industry. In addition, high CO2 partial pressure reduced the decomposition rate of raw meal from 96.6% to 82.3%, and increased the outlet temperature by 118 K. Therefore, the pollutant emissions and carbon capture costs in the cement industry can be effectively reduced under the O2/CO2 atmosphere.

Cite this article

LI Lan, ZHANG Shuang, XU Guiling, ZHANG Haixia, MIKULČIĆ Hrvoje, BU Changsheng, KANG Yu, ZHANG Qi, LU Ping . Numerical Simulation on Oxy-Fuel Combustion of Pulverized Coal and Raw Meal Decomposition in Precalciner under O2/CO2 Atmospheres[J]. Journal of Thermal Science, 2026 , 35(1) : 188 -202 . DOI: 10.1007/s11630-025-2204-4

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