Nenad Sarunac

USE OF COAL DRYING TO REDUCE WATER CONSUMED IN PULVERIZED COAL POWER PLANTS

This is the first Quarterly Report for this project. The background and technical justification for the project are described, including potential benefits of reducing fuel moisture, prior to firing in a pulverized coal boiler. A description is given of the equipment and instrumentation being used for the fluidized bed drying experiments. Results of fluidization and drying tests performed with North Dakota lignite, having a 6.35 mm (1/4 inch) top size, are presented. The experiments were performed with a 381 mm (15 inch) settled bed depth, with inlet air and in-bed heater surface temperatures of 44.3 C (110 F), and with the superficial air velocity ranging from 0.2 m/s to 1.4 m/s. Drying rate is shown to be a strong function of air velocity, increasing seven-fold from 0.2 m/s to 1.4 m/s. Increases in velocity from 0.75 m/s (minimum fluidization velocity) to 1.4 m/s resulted in a doubling of the drying rate.

A Novel Fluidized Bed Drying and Density Segregation Process for Upgrading Low-Rank Coals

Lignite and sub-bituminous coals are attractive due to their low cost, low emissions, and high reactivity. However, these coals contain large amounts of moisture, which reduces calorific value and lowers plant efficiency. A novel fluidized bed drying process was developed that uses low-grade waste heat to reduce fuel moisture content of low-rank high-moisture coals and concurrently lowers sulfur and mercury content of dried coal through density segregation. This paper discusses quality improvement of low-rank coals by low-temperature thermal drying, describes changes in microstructure of coal particles and describes the reduction in sulfur and mercury via density segregation during thermal drying of lignite in a specially designed fluidized bed.

COMPARISON AND VALIDATION OF OHM AND SCEM MEASUREMENTS FOR A FULL-SCALE COAL-FIRED POWER PLANT

Mercury emission measurements were performed at a 250 MW coal-fired power plant using the Ontario Hydro method (OHM) and semi-continuous emission monitors (SCEM). Flue gas sampling was performed at the inlet of the air preheater and at the outlet of the electrostatic precipitator. The results indicated that there is some agreement between the OHM and SCEM measurements on the total mercury species. However, the SCEM results were not always in good agreement with the OHM measurements on the elemental mercury species. These discrepancies in elemental mercury concentrations are probably the result of the differences in the location of the SCEM and OHM probes, the temperature difference between the SCEM sampling probe and the flue gas, and the nonuniformities in mercury concentration over the flue gas duct cross section. The other factor that contributed to the deviation between the SCEM and OHM measurement results is the sampling method: the SCEM measurements were performed at a single point while the OHM probe was traversed over multiple points over the duct cross section and the results were averaged. The effect of the SCEM sampling probe temperature was investigated by designing a sampling probe that could be heated to the sampled flue gas temperatures. This resulted in improvements in the accuracy of the elemental mercury measurements by the SCEM system.