Pilot Testing of WRI'S Novel Mercury Control Technology by Pre-Combustion Thermal Treatment of Coal

Alan Bland ; Jesse Newcomer ; Kumar Sellakumar

关键词: BOILERS;    COAL;    COMBUSTION;    CONFIGURATION;    ECONOMIC ANALYSIS;    ECONOMICS;    EFFICIENCY;    ELECTRIC POWER;    EVALUATION;    HEATING;    LIGNITE;    MARKET;    MERCURY;    MOISTURE;    PERFORMANCE;    REMOVAL;    SUBBITUMINOUS COAL;    TESTING;   

DOI  :  10.2172/948011
RP-ID  :  None
PID  :  OSTI ID: 948011
Others  :  TRN: US200906%%111

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The challenges to the coal-fired power industry continue to focus on the emission control technologies, such as mercury, and plant efficiency improvements. An alternate approach to post-combustion control of mercury, while improving plant efficiency deals with Western Research Institute's (WRI)'s patented pre-combustion mercury removal and coal upgrading technology. WRI was awarded under the DOE's Phase III Mercury program, to evaluate the effectiveness of WRI's novel thermal pretreatment process to achieve >50% mercury removal, and at costs of <$30,000/lb of Hg removed. WRI has teamed with Etaa Energy, Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), Foster Wheeler North America Corp. (FWNA), and Washington Division of URS (WD-URS), and with project co-sponsors including Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Southern Company, Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC), Montana-Dakota Utilities (MDU), North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), Detroit Edison (DTE), and SaskPower to undertake this evaluation. The technical objectives of the project were structured in two phases: Phase I--coal selection and characterization, and bench-and PDU-scale WRI process testing and; and Phase II--pilot-scale pc combustion testing, design of an integrated boiler commercial configuration, its impacts on the boiler performance and the economics of the technology related to market applications. This report covers the results of the Phase I testing. The conclusion of the Phase I testing was that the WRI process is a technically viable technology for (1) removing essentially all of the moisture from low rank coals, thereby raising the heating value of the coal by about 30% for subbituminous coals and up to 40% for lignite coals, and (2) for removing volatile trace mercury species (up to 89%) from the coal prior to combustion. The results established that the process meets the goals of DOE of removing <50% of the mercury from the coals by pre-combustion methods. As such, further testing, demonstration and economic analysis as described in the Phase II effort is warranted and should be pursued.