A recovery boiler captures energy from waste products that have not been fully burned and recycles it back to the primary energy generation system. It can be used in various industrial equipment, with waste products usually being gas or liquid. Recovery boilers are commonly used in paper mills to extract energy from black liquor. The combustion of waste products produces heat, which is used to create steam and drive equipment, increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A recovery boiler is a subsystem of a power plant used to capture energy that would otherwise be lost in waste products that have not been fully burned. This energy is recycled back to the primary energy generation system to produce more energy. For this reason, this equipment can be alternatively referred to as a heat recovery boiler or heat recovery boiler. The main requirement for its use is that the waste products of the system have sufficient recoverable energy to operate the primary energy generating equipment. Recovery boilers can be used in fuel systems for a variety of industrial equipment.
The waste recovered for further combustion in a recovery boiler is usually a gas, a liquid or a combination of the two. Processes that generate these types of waste include metal refineries, petrochemical processing plants, and other industrial facilities that operate at high temperatures. Solid material may also be used, although this is less common. The most notable example of solids used in waste boilers is in papermaking.
Recovery boilers in pulp or paper mills most commonly extract additional energy from a recycled byproduct of the papermaking process known as black liquor. When you break down wood to make pulp, a chemical compound called cellulose is separated from the other compounds for use in the paper. Black liquor is the term for a combination of water and residue left over from the pulping process. This residue includes not only wood by-products, but also chemicals used in the extraction process. The mixture is typically concentrated in an evaporator and then sent to the recovery boiler for combustion.
Whether black liquor, waste gas or some other waste product is recycled, the waste product is burned in the combustion chamber of a recovery boiler. The heat produced by this combustion is typically used to heat water to create steam. The steam drives equipment, such as a turbine, thus converting waste heat into mechanical energy. In turn, the turbine converts mechanical energy into electrical energy, which can then be used to drive the plant.
By using a recovery boiler to recover energy that would otherwise be wasted, an industrial plant can increase its energy efficiency. Fuel cost savings can be substantial, particularly for systems with high temperature exhaust. In such systems, up to half of the energy fed into the system could be discharged into the battery if not recycled. Another advantage of recovery boilers is that the reduction of fuel burned results in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a lower impact on the environment.
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