Safety aspects of fuel handling in IGCC and PFBC plants
Safety-technical characteristics of fuels, primarily biomass and, as reference, coal have been studied at VTT Energy since the year 1993. The work has related mainly to the development work of feeding and handling systems for pressurized gasification and combustion technology. This paper compares various pressurized system alternatives based primarily on lock-hopper feeding technology. A significant issue is how to arrange pressurization and sufficiently safe conditions. New alternatives to produce inert gas and the latest dust explosion suppression technology are assessed. New data on the safety-technical characteristics of renewable fuels, wastes, low-rank coals and mixtures of these, created in a research project funded by EC under the Joule 3 Programme are presented. Dust explosion testing was performed at initial pressures of up to 15 bar and temperatures of 150 C to simulate pressurized drying and handling of the biomass fuels. Inerting tests with nitrogen and flue gases were carried out to determine the requirements of non-explosive conditions. Very high explosion pressures and rates of pressure rise are measured at elevated initial pressures. The required level of inertization on dust explosions is dependent of the initial pressure and temperature. Safe operation would require an oxygen concentration of max 10 vol% in the surrounding atmosphere. The allowable oxygen concentration decreases with increasing initial temperature. For all powders tested this decrease was more or less the same, around 1--3 vol% per 100 C temperature rise. Suppression tests were performed in co-operation with Coal Technology Development Division of British Coal Corp. to assess the usability of this explosion protection method for biomass fuels in elevated conditions.
- Research Organization:
- VTT Energy (FI)
- OSTI ID:
- 20006815
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990534-; TRN: IM200008%%422
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 15th International Conference on Fluidized Bed Combustion, Savannah, GA (US), 05/16/1999--05/19/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating system required: Windows 3.x; Windows 95/98/NT; Macintosh, Power Macintosh; UNIX. All systems need 2X CD-ROM drive.; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 15th national conference on fluidized bed combustion, by Reuther, R.B. [ed.], [1800] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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