Vibrating grate stokers for the sugar industry

Some 15 years ago, it became apparent that travelling grate and water-cooled pinhole grate stokers were no longer able to cope with the increasing demands of the biomass burning industry. These demands included lower excess air firing for efficiency and emission control, higher boiler capacities, and greater availability to the plant. These demands were met in part by the air-cooled vibrating grate stoker and, more importantly, by the newly developed water-cooled automatic ash discharge grate, which gives high efficiency filing at lowest possible emission rates, and prolonged operation without shutdown for maintenance and/or grate cleaning. The demands of the sugar industry are growing in this direction and vibrating grate stokers are well suited to answer the challenge for highly reliable firing of bagasse, woodwaste and coal in the new evolution of co-generating power plants_