Future of circulating fluidized bed combustion technology in China for carbon neutralization

More attention is paid on the circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion technology because of its advantage in low cost emission control. Recently, great achievements have been realized in China. The development history of CFB combustion technology in China for decades is reviewed in this paper, from learning to independent technological innovation. High-performance CFB boilers, energy-saving CFB boilers and ultra-low emissions CFB boilers have be successively developed, while improving steam parameters and realizing large-scale. At present, China has become the largest equipment supplier and user of CFB boilers in the world. As an important part of China's coal-fired power generation system, important contributions have been made to reliable and cheap power supply and low-quality fuel consumption. For the carbon neutralization, coal will be indispensable in the security of power system as the guaranteed energy. As the main way of efficient and clean utilization of low calorific value coal and high sulfur anthracite, greater advantages of CFB boiler in deep peak regulation and rapid load changing flexibility should be exploited. To meet the peak regulating demand of high proportion of new energy consumption, pulverized coal CFB technology can be developed, distributed small-capacity high-parameter CFBs can be explored, and the potential of 0-100% load long-term combustion break and fast restart of CFB units can be explored, so as to further improve the operational flexibility of CFB units. On the basis of operation flexibility, the advantages of CFB boiler fuel flexibility are used to realize high-sulfur anthracite ultra-supercritical high-efficiency power generation and to achieve ultra-low emissions simultaneously. Furthermore, mixed fuel CFB power generation should be developed to realize the consumption of low-carbon combustible wastes such as municipal sludge, domestic waste, biomass and other inferior fuels from of coal mining and washing. In addition, ultra-low emission control technology under flexible operation and intelligent CFB power generation technology should be developed to assist the transformation and development of China's energy structure.