Year: 2025 | Month: December | Volume: 12 | Issue: 12 | Pages: 370-384
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20251242
Health and Air – Quality Externalities of Cofiring Retrofit: Evidence, Model, Evidence, Model, and Policy Response: A Systematic Review of Production Techniques and Application
Romi D Jafar1, Fitryane Lihawa2, Dewi Wahyuni K. Baderan3, Marike Mahmud4
1Doctoral Program in Environmental Science, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo, Gorontalo, Indonesia
2,3,4Postgraduate Program, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo, Gorontalo, Indonesia
Corresponding Author: Romi D Jafar
ABSTRACT
Biomass–coal cofiring has emerged as a promising transitional strategy for low-carbon energy generation, yet uncertainties persist regarding its air-quality and health implications. This systematic literature review synthesizes evidence from 2000–2025 across 17 peer-reviewed studies to evaluate how fuel pretreatment, combustion modes, and control portfolios influence pollutant emissions, ambient PM₂. ₅, and population-level health outcomes. The review integrates combustion modeling, chemical transport analysis, and policy evaluation to bridge the knowledge gap between emission reductions and health co-benefits.
The methodology followed PRISMA guidelines, incorporating studies from Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and ScienceDirect, with quality assessments using ROBIS and GRADE frameworks. Key findings reveal that torrefaction and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) improve biomass quality, reducing NOx, SO₂, and PM₂.₅ by up to 40% under optimized conditions. Oxy-fuel and syngas reburn configurations demonstrate the most significant emission reductions, particularly when coupled with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD), and Electrostatic Precipitators (ESP). However, regional inequities in health benefits persist, as uniform emission policies inadequately address high-exposure zones.
Spatially explicit modeling using GIS and CMAQ demonstrates that integrating environmental justice (EJ) metrics and targeted retrofits can close up to 25% of the health gap between affluent and disadvantaged regions. Carbon pricing, renewable mandates, and subsidy frameworks, when aligned with spatial targeting, emerge as effective mechanisms for equitable decarbonization. This review concludes that cofiring’s health benefits are realized only under optimized technical and policy conditions that combine emission control, fuel innovation, and social inclusion. The study contributes a unified analytical framework linking combustion science, air-quality modeling, and policy equity, offering actionable insights for health-centered energy transitions.
Keywords: Biomass cofiring; air quality; Environmental justice; emission control; health co-benefit
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