Engineering guidelines for precombustion control of air toxics

Conference · Thu Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1998

OSTI ID:349189

Raleigh, Jr, C E; Akes, D J ^[1]; Janik, G S; Toole-O`Neil, B ^[2]

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1. CQ Inc., Homer City, PA (United States)
2. New York State Electric and Gas Co., Binghamton, NY (United States)

Eleven elements and their compounds commonly found in coal are identified by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) as among 189 hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). These elements are antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, and selenium. Fluorine, in the form of hydrofluoric acid, is also listed. If utilities are faced with HAPs regulations in the near term, the least cost, lowest risk option in many cases will be to limit the content of specific trace elements in fuel purchases. One option is to purchase coal naturally low in regulated trace elements. If a coal naturally low in the regulated trace element cannot be obtained locally, utilities may be forced to buy coal from other regions, increasing transportation charges and, therefore, the cost of delivered coal. A second option is coal cleaning. Current methods of coal cleaning reduce ash and sulfur content by removing ash-forming and sulfur-bearing minerals; these same methods have the capability to remove large amounts of most of the elements listed in Title III of the CAAA. To evaluate the potential of using precombustion methods to control air toxics emissions from coals burned regularly by Pennsylvania and New York utilities, the Pennsylvania Electric Energy Research Council (PEERC), the Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation (ESEERCO), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) sponsored coal cleaning testing and process engineering evaluations at CQ Inc.`s Coal Quality Development Center in Homer City, Pennsylvania. These efforts resulted in the development of a set of engineering guidelines that contain specific approaches for increasing the removal of trace elements of concern during the cleaning of Pennsylvania coals. The guidelines were constructed by coupling the cleaning performance data from commercial operations and commercial-scale tests on coals found in Pennsylvania with information about the modes of occurrence of trace elements in these coals. The engineering guideline for each element of concern is a stand-alone, single page summary which provides practical advice and cleaning strategy that can be used by both operators and designers of cleaning plants. The guidelines also include regression equations that can predict the trace element content of Pennsylvania coals before and after cleaning.

• OSTI ID: 349189
• Report Number(s): CONF-980985--; ISBN 1-890977-15-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
AIR POLLUTION CONTROL
COAL
COAL PREPARATION
DEASHING
DEMETALLIZATION
DESULFURIZATION
PERFORMANCE TESTING
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