Abstract
Despite active development of alternative energy sources according to climate change regulations, coal demand, led by growth of economy and industrial activity, has increased across the world. Taking even higher shares in countries' energy generation e.g., in Central Europe countries like Poland coal share in energy sector reached 80%, coal demand will increase, as has also been forecast by International Energy Agency Although combustion of coal is a mature technology, it has significant drawbacks that put this technology under debate. Primarily, the emissions of trace pollutants (SOx, NOx, CO, CO2, etc.), in large amounts contribute to overall air quality deterioration. In addition, combustion process is also notoriously known for its low efficiency, ranging between 37% and 57%, partly caused by the quality of coal Hence, a need for advanced optimization emerges, to minimize emissions and to operate combustion at high efficiencies. Several models of coal combustion processes have been developed; however, the existing models have several constraints in terms of the type of utilized coal, operating conditions, simplification assumptions, and overall stiffness of the model. Moreover, these models have not considered utilization of a blend fuel (coal/biomass) for optimization purposes.