J. García-Torrent

J. García-Torrent
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid | UPM · Energy and Fuels

PhD

About

82
Publications
30,134
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
932
Citations

Publications

Publications (82)
Article
Full-text available
A fire inside a pyrotechnic store can lead to simultaneous initiation of the stored articles, regardless of their risk category, producing a shockwave caused by the released gas pressure. In fact, several accidents have occurred throughout history in pyrotechnic stores. This indicates the high risk posed by pyrotechnics due to their flammability. D...
Article
Handling combustible dusts not only continues to pose a risk to industry but can also affect the safety of society. Explosion risk could be avoided or mitigated trying to guarantee inherent safety throughout the product life chain. One way to reduce the risks when dealing with combustible dust is to increase the Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) in ord...
Article
Enriching biogas with hydrogen could enable conventional natural gas systems to be used for clean energy. This technique has generally been evaluated using laboratory devices, so this study addresses a conventional combustion system, consisting of a 100 kW burner fed with biogas-hydrogen mixtures instead of natural gas. Flame behavior and ignition...
Article
Full-text available
Global warming and the GHG effect have forced the reduction of the energetic dependence on fossil fuels. Because of that, research focusing on biomass properties, characteristics and energetic conversion has increased in the last decades. The present study was carried out in terms of determination of kinetic parameters, focusing on two different en...
Article
Full-text available
Biogas is a renewable gas with low heat energy, which makes it extremely difficult to use as fuel in conventional natural gas equipment. Nonetheless, the use of hydrogen as a biogas additive has proven to have a beneficial effect on flame stability and combustion behavior. This study evaluates the biogas–hydrogen combustion in a conventional natura...
Article
The use of renewable energy has increased in the last decades including the consumption of biofuels, so the research focused on improving these energetic vectors has increased too, developing techniques that enhance energetic properties of these fuels. In this context, torrefaction is a thermal pre-treatment that diminishes the main disadvantages p...
Article
Self-ignition of solid fuels storage is one of the main causes of human and economic losses. Additionally, each fire caused by this phenomenon emits an amount of toxic gases that contributes on the development of climate change. Nowadays, several methodologies are used in order to detect the self-ignition tendency of solid fuels, but they have as m...
Article
In the last decade, the use of renewable resources has increased significantly in order to reduce the energetic dependence on fossil fuels, as they have an important contribution to the global warning and greenhouse gasses effect. Therefore, the role of biomass on the energetic mix is becoming critical nowadays, as it is the only renewable resource...
Article
Full-text available
Dust explosions and fires pose an industrial safety problem, due to the human and material losses caused by them. As many fuel processes and material transport generate powder particles, the effect of granulometry in different flammability properties has been studied to define the relationship between both. Deep knowledge of this relationship reduc...
Chapter
We cannot continue on a business-as-usual, carbon fuel dependent mode of operation, because the consequences of doing so are catching up with us. So, what must we do to ensure there is a tomorrow? In this book, experts from around the world come together to shed light on what we can do to preserve and expand resources key to the survival of human...
Chapter
Biofuels have proved the environmental benefits that their use make, and how by using these clean energies and reducing the use of fossil fuels we could reduce pollution and emissions. However, they have a main disadvantage: its lower energy density compared to fossil fuels. These two facts together have been the key of an intermediate solution, th...
Chapter
Any industrial facility that generates or handles any type of solid biofuels should design prevention and protection measurements based on both the ignition sources that may be present and the characteristics of the dusts. These characteristics highly vary between substances and even among the same substance, so their determination is essential and...
Chapter
Nowadays, environmental issues are the key of policy, economic and social movements. Due to its importance, the world is developing solutions capable to assure a sustainable future. By means of large agreements between countries, a new series of directives and legislation are created allowing to control and reduce the most harmful activities and to...
Chapter
The use of biofuels is subject to great controversy. On one side, environmental policies point biofuels as the key actor of new green technologies to decrease the harmful emissions related with the use of fossil fuels. On the other side, biofuels were accused of competing with food production for land. The reality is that the use of biofuels is rap...
Chapter
The chemical composition of the materials has a high effect in their flammability and ignition risks. In the case of coals, it is well known that an increase on the volatiles content, meaning a decrease in the ash content, causes a rise in the flammability probability of the samples.
Chapter
Fossil fuel is defined as “a natural fuel such as coal or gas formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms” [1]. In this chapter we are going to focus on its solid form, coal, “a black or dark brown rock consisting chiefly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground seams and used as fuel” [2].
Chapter
Accidents in the process industry result into human and material losses, accident cost, production stop cost, judgements, etc. In order to avoid all those consequences, improvement of industrial safety measures must be achieved, but it cannot be accomplished without a deep knowledge of their primary causes, spread processes, etc., so the risk asses...
Chapter
Regardless the goal and final use of solid fuels, all these substances need to be handled, processed and stored. These steps involve several risks that need to be identified, characterised and treated in order to avoid, or at least reduce, the consequences of a possible accident.
Chapter
The flammable nature of solid biofuels has been proved, and also the risky conditions on which those biofuels are produced, treated, stored or used. Because of that, it is necessary to stablish safety measures in order to avoid accidents by reducing risks. Those safety measures can be divided in two categories: prevention and protection measures.
Conference Paper
Detection of incipient combustion process is a key factor in industrial safety as it can prevent severe accidents. Different methods to detect self-heating processes have been developed, as it might be the first step of self-ignition process, including the detection through gas emission methodology whose improvement is the aim of this study. Six di...
Conference Paper
The use of Holi dust (colour dust) is extensive around the world since the popularity of the parties and events with this kind of show is increasing considerably. Despite the fact of its extensive use, its highly flammable nature is poorly known. Currently, some serious accidents related to the Holi dust have been registered. The organic nature of...
Article
Full-text available
The use of hydrogen as an energy vector seems today one of the most viable alternatives, although its use involves safety problems due to the generation of explosive atmospheres. Lower and upper flammability limits are one of the most important parameters at the time of characterize and handle flammable gases. This paper is focused on the evaluatio...
Article
Dust layers are present in every industrial facility where solid materials are generated or processed. The emergence of new fuels with still unknown flammability properties generates an increase on the risks related with these facilities that needs to be further studied. Most of these biomasses are susceptible to exothermically react, acting as an...
Article
Due to both environmental concerns and the depletion of the reserves of fossil fuels, alternative and more environmentally friendly fuels, such as biomass and waste products, are being considered for partial or full fossil fuel replacement. The main disadvantage of these products is their lower energy density compared to fossil fuels. To deal with...
Article
Full-text available
Mining in Colombia is regulated by the Mining Safety Code, and although it had not been updated since 1987, the references on safety that the code has owned were based on international standards. However, these references do not have a mandatory adoption, and despite a strong component on occupational safety and health, Decree 1886/15 continues to...
Article
Over the past century, the coal mining industry experienced a large number of explosions leading to a considerable loss of life. The objective of this study is preventing the propagation of methane and/or coal dust explosions through the use of passive water barriers and its implementation to the Spanish coal mining industry. Physical and chemical...
Article
The determination of the safety conditions in the storage and handling of solid recovered fuels (SRFs) was evaluated in order to avoid the presence of explosive atmospheres. Ten SRF samples were selected from different solid waste streams and collected in different seasons and different locations in Spain. Four different testing methodologies for c...
Article
The explosivity of coal in Colombia is usually determined by chemical analysis based on the volatile ratio. To improve the assessment of the explosivity of those coals that have led to numerous explosions in Colombian mines, 22 coals from the department of Antioquia were analyzed. Flammability characteristic parameters were determined, such as mini...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Due to environmental concerns and depleting reserves of fossil fuels, alternative, environmentally friendly fuels such as biomass and waste products are being considered for partial or full fossil fuel replacement. A particular problem of waste materials such sewage sludge is the low energy density and to deal with this several heat and power gener...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
One of the main environmental problems in all the developed countries is the disposal of the high amount of waste that is generated every day. Energy industries are looking for implementing new Solid Recovery Fuels (SRFs) from municipal, industrial wastes and sewage sludge for sustainable development. The waste management has developed ways to prod...
Article
Full-text available
The objective of this work is the implementation of passive water trough barriers to put in practice EN-14591-2:2007 standard, as well as an update of the continuing study of passive water barriers. The viability of water barriers in typical Spanish small cross section galleries was analyzed and full scale testing at “Barbara” experimental mine in...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The general purpose of this study was the determination of the safety conditions to avoid the presence of explosive atmospheres in the wastewater industry. Eight Spanish plants located in Madrid, Barcelona and Málaga were considered and several sludge samples were taken in different seasons. The base for the assessment of the spontaneous ignition b...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The aim of this study is to propose an experimental methodology to detect incipient self-ignition processes in solid fuels. This methodology is based on the gases emissions of different solid fuels, varying different factors: sample volume, degree of compaction and grain size of the materials. To achieve this goal, a procedure for the collection an...
Article
La protección adecuada de los equipos o sistemas que han de trabajar en atmósferas potencialmente explosivas no es suficiente cuando se trata de la seguridad frente a posibles explosiones o a la prevención de potenciales riesgos directos de las personas, en cuyo caso deben estar amparados también por la llamada seguridad funcional que exige una ser...
Article
The key objective of this paper is the presentation of a new risk assessment tool for underground coal mines based on a simplified semi-quantitative estimation and assessment method. In order to determine the risk of explosion of any work process or activity in underground coal mines it is necessary to assess the risk. The proposed method is based...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The self-ignition of all kind of powdery substances is a topic studied over the years, especially if the dusty substance is coal or substances related with coal because it may be a cause of energetic materials and human losses. But it is important to note that this is not the only risk in industrial plants that generate or store solid substances. E...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Dry sewage sludge are being considered as a possible energy source for direct firing. They have interesting properties to be used as an alternative fuel, but also other characteristics must be considered from the point of view of its safe operation: the most important are ignition sensitivity, explosion severity, thermal sensitivity and thermal sta...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In the present paper, we carry out the application of concept mapping strategies to learning Physical Chemistry, in particular, of all aspects of Corrosion. This strategy is an alternative method to supplement examinations: it can show the teacher how much the students knew and how much they didn’t know; and the students can evaluate their own lear...
Article
The safe storage, processing and handling of coals and biomass resources requires their tendency to self-ignite be understood; fires caused by self-ignition have occurred on many occasions in ports and at industrial plants. This work provides information on the tendency of several types of coal and four types of biomass to self-ignite. Data were ob...
Article
The boil off gas in Spanish LNG terminals is managed using recondensers. The electricity consumed by these terminals is bought in the Spanish wholesale market. Several power generating options using current available equipment and assuring the availability of the current terminal process have been analyzed thermoeconomically. A new combined cycle u...
Article
Spain is a country with six LNG terminals in operation and three more scheduled for 2011. At the same time an increasing number of LNG tanks are under construction to compensate the Spanish lack of underground storage. A method for evaluating the daily boil off generated is presented in this paper. This method is applied to evaluate the increase of...
Article
Agricultural products stored in silos, and their dusts, can undergo oxidation and self-heating, increasing the risk of self-ignition and therefore of fires and explosions. The aim of the present work was to determine the thermal susceptibility (as reflected by the Maciejasz index, the temperature of the emission of flammable volatile substances and...
Chapter
IntroductionExperimental TechniquesReferences
Article
There are always risks associated with silos when the stored material has been characterized as prone to self-ignition or explosion. Further research focused on the characterization of agricultural materials stored in silos is needed due to the lack of data found in the literature. The aim of this study was to determine the ignitability and explosi...
Article
Methane emission into the underground mine environment frequently leads to gas accumulations and therefore increases explosion risk. This risk is very serious since primary gas explosion can act as an ignition source of the secondary coal dust explosion with devastating consequences, generating disastrous events in underground mines. In most cases...
Article
Full-text available
Las normas para la clasificación de zonas por el riesgo de atmósferas explosivas (ATEX) debidas al polvo han sufrido un proceso continuo de evolución. En todos los casos, provienen del sector eléctrico, que, tradicionalmente, antes de la Directiva 94/9/CE, establecía las reglas para definir distintos niveles de probabilidad de aparición y duración...
Article
Full-text available
The objective is the study of filtering tissue permeability and the characterization by means of permeability tests, of the process of coal particles retention in breath protection filters.The permeability of nine probes have been measured against particl
Article
Full-text available
A scale model of a dead end gallery has been developed. After heated air flow was introduced, the increase in temperature and gases evolution were monitored. The ventilation was increased and the temperature was elevated to produce an ignition process. Obtained data have shown significant measures of the self ignition mechanism, bringing a valuable...
Article
In this article the regulations are superficially analyzed from the viewpoint of the industrial installations with gas boilers, and the recommendations for safety applicable to the different elements of these facilities are presented. It is concluded that this will be attained following the ATEX procedures.
Article
This paper reports some experimental work on hot surface ignition temperatures of dust deposits. Dust layers up to 75 mm in depth were ignited using a modified version of the standard 5 mm layer apparatus. The measured ignition temperatures show good agreement with predictions using the method given in EN 50281-2-1. Ignition temperatures of conical...
Article
Full-text available
Dust is present in the industry in the form of clouds or layers and, although care is present, accidents occur due to ignition sources becoming active. After a revision of the current existing methods, three new test methods have been developed, relating to the most usual risks of this type on the industry: dust accumulations, dust clouds and dust...
Book
Full-text available
The overall objective of this research project was to create new data on the safety-technical characteristics of renewable fuels, low-rank coals and mixtures of these. Knowledge of basic handling and safety-technical chracteristics is of crucial significance for the design of handling equipment and safety systems, and for the assessment of explosio...
Article
The aim of this work is to study the influence of initial pressure on the limiting oxygen concentration for a biomass dust. Atmospheric tests were carried out in the 20-1 sphere. Hyperbaric tests at 0.5, 1.2 and 1.8 MPa were developed in a 1-m3 spherical vessel. This study used unusually high initial testing pressures, and it was performed with a r...
Article
This paper describes a series of explosion tests carried out with biomass at high initial pressures. Atmospheric tests were developed in a 20 1 sphere, and a hyperbaric series at 1 and 1.5 MPa in a 1 m3 sphere. Depending on concentration, one or two points of dispersion were used and the injection impulse varied from 2.0 to 3.5 MPa, achieving diffe...
Article
The correlation previously found between composition and explosibility index for coal dust has been improved by means of three main modifications: use of better laboratory apparatus, correction of volatile matter data and increased number of samples. The new mathematical expressions proved to be consistent and useful as a first approach to improve...
Article
A composition index for coal and an explosibility index for coal dust are defined. The first is based on the proximate and ultimate analysis of different types of coals, ranging from lignites to anthracites. The second index depends on the explosibility parameters of coal dust determined by means of laboratory tests, such as the Hartmann Tube and t...

Network

Cited By