Coal gasification produces residual particles of coal char, coal ash, and sorbent that are suspended in the fuel gas stream exiting the gasifier. In most cases, these particles (referred to, hereafter, simply as char) must be removed from the stream prior to sending the gas to a turbine, fuel cell, or other downstream device. Currently, the most common approach to cleaning the gas stream at high temperature and pressure is by filtering the particulate with a porous ceramic or metal filter. However, because these dusts frequently have small size distributions, irregular morphology, and high specific surface areas, they can have very high gas flow resistance resulting in hot-gas filter system operating problems. Typical of gasification chars, the hot-gas filter dustcakes produced at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) during recent coal gasification tests have had very high flow resistance (Martin et al, 2002). The filter system has been able to successfully operate, but pressure drops have been high and filter cleaning must occur very frequently. In anticipation of this problem, a study was conducted to investigate ways of reducing dustcake pressure drop. This paper will discuss the efficacy of adding low-flow-resistance particulate matter to the high-flow-resistance char dustcake to reduce dustcake pressure drop. The study had two parts: a laboratory screening study and confirming field measurements at the PSDF.
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