Robert D. Lewis

ULTRA LOW NOx INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR NOx EMISSION CONTROL FROM COAL-FIRED BOILERS

ALSTOM Power Inc.s Power Plant Laboratories, working in concert with ALSTOM Powers Performance Projects Group, has teamed with the U.S. Department of Energys National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE NETL) to conduct a comprehensive study to develop/evaluate low-cost, efficient NOx control technologies for retrofit to pulverized coal fired utility boilers. The objective of this project was to develop retrofit NOx control technology to achieve less than 0.15 lb/MMBtu NOx (for bituminous coals) and 0.10 lb/MMBtu NOx (for subbituminous coals) from existing pulverized coal fired utility boilers at a cost which is at least 25% less than SCR technology. Efficient control of NOx is seen as an important, enabling step in keeping coal as a viable part of the national energy mix in this century, and beyond. Presently 57% of U.S. electrical generation is coal based, and the Energy Information Agency projects that coal will maintain a lead in U.S. power generation over all other fuel sources for decades (EIA 1998 Energy Forecast). Yet, coal-based power is being strongly challenged by societys ever-increasing desire for an improved environment and the resultant improvement in health and safety. The needs of the electric-utility industry are to improve environmental performance, while simultaneously improving overall plant economics. This means that emissions control technology is needed with very low capital and operating costs. This project has responded to the industrys need for low NOx emissions by evaluating ideas that can be adapted to present pulverized coal fired systems, be they conventional or low NOx firing systems. The TFS 2000{trademark} firing system has been the ALSTOM Power Inc. commercial offering producing the lowest NOx emission levels. In this project, the TFS 2000{trademark} firing system served as a basis for comparison to other low NOx systems evaluated and was the foundation upon which refinements were made to further improve NOx emissions and related combustion performance. Three coals were evaluated during the bench-scale and large pilot-scale testing tasks. The three coals ranged from a very reactive Powder River Basin coal (PRB) to a moderately reactive Midwestern bituminous coal (HVB) to a less reactive medium volatile Eastern bituminous coal (MVB). Bench-scale testing was comprised of standard ASTM properties evaluation, plus more detailed characterization of fuel properties through drop tube furnace testing and thermogravimetric analysis.

Enhanced Combustion Low NOx Pulverized Coal Burner

For more than two decades, Alstom Power Inc. (Alstom) has developed a range of low cost, infurnace technologies for NOx emissions control for the domestic U.S. pulverized coal fired boiler market. This includes Alstoms internally developed TFS 2000{trademark} firing system, and various enhancements to it developed in concert with the U.S. Department of Energy. As of the date of this report, more than 270 units representing approximately 80,000 MWe of domestic coal fired capacity have been retrofit with Alstom low NOx technology. Best of class emissions range from 0.18 lb/MMBtu for bituminous coal to 0.10 lb/MMBtu for subbituminous coal, with typical levels at 0.24 lb/MMBtu and 0.13 lb/MMBtu, respectively. Despite these gains, NOx emissions limits in the U.S. continue to ratchet down for new and existing boiler equipment. On March 10, 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). CAIR requires 25 Eastern states to reduce NOx emissions from the power generation sector by 1.7 million tons in 2009 and 2.0 million tons by 2015. Low cost solutions to meet such regulations, and in particular those that can avoid the need for a costly selective catalytic reduction system (SCR), provide a strong incentive to continue to improve low NOx firing system technology to meet current and anticipated NOx control regulations. The overall objective of the work is to develop an enhanced combustion, low NOx pulverized coal burner, which, when integrated with Alstoms state-of-the-art, globally air staged low NOx firing systems will provide a means to achieve: Less than 0.15 lb/MMBtu NOx emissions when firing a high volatile Eastern or Western bituminous coal, Less than 0.10 lb/MMBtu NOx emissions when firing a subbituminous coal, NOx reduction costs at least 25% lower than the costs of an SCR, Validation of the NOx control technology developed through large (15 MWt) pilot scale demonstration, and Documentation required for economic evaluation and commercial application. During the project performance period, Alstom performed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and large pilot scale combustion testing in its Industrial Scale Burner Facility (ISBF) at its U.S. Power Plant Laboratories facility in Windsor, Connecticut in support of these objectives. The NOx reduction approach was to optimize near-field combustion to ensure that minimum NOx emissions are achieved with minimal impact on unburned carbon in ash, slagging and fouling, corrosion, and flame stability/turn-down. Several iterations of CFD and combustion testing on a Midwest coal led to an optimized design, which was extensively combustion tested on a range of coals. The data from these tests were then used to validate system costs and benefits versus SCR. Three coals were evaluated during the bench-scale and large pilot-scale testing tasks. The three coals ranged from a very reactive subbituminous coal to a moderately reactive Western bituminous coal to a much less reactive Midwest bituminous coal. Bench-scale testing was comprised of standard ASTM properties evaluation, plus more detailed characterization of fuel properties through drop tube furnace testing and thermogravimetric analysis. Bench-scale characterization of the three test coals showed that both NOx emissions and combustion performance are a strong function of coal properties. The more reactive coals evolved more of their fuel bound nitrogen in the substoichiometric main burner zone than less reactive coal, resulting in the potential for lower NOx emissions. From a combustion point of view, the more reactive coals also showed lower carbon in ash and CO values than the less reactive coal at any given main burner zone stoichiometry. According to bench-scale results, the subbituminous coal was found to be the most amenable to both low NOx, and acceptably low combustibles in the flue gas, in an air staged low NOx system. The Midwest bituminous coal, by contrast, was predicted to be the most challenging of the three coals, with the Western bituminous coal predicted to behave in-between the subbituminous coal and the Midwest bituminous coal. CFD modeling was used to gain insight into the mechanisms governing nozzle tip performance with respect to NOx emissions. The CFD simulations were run as steady state, turbulent, non-reacting flow with heat transfer and focused on predicting the near field mixing and particle dispersion rates. CFD results were used to refine the proposed tip concepts before they were built, as well as to help identify and evaluate possible improvements to the tips for subsequent test weeks.