Development of a coal burning vortex containment combustor. Final report

Technical Report · Sun Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:6266868

La Fond, J F; Chen, S L; Greene, S B; Heap, M P; Lewis, J E; Seeker, W R

In recent years, the scarce supply of the US' petroleum products and the increased price of foreign oil has motivated the pursuit of burning systems which would allow coal to replace oil and gas in existing boilers and furnaces. Three major problems arise when attempting to convert to coal firing: (1) Fuel Preparation - conventional coal firing requires large storage area and expensive handling equipment, (2) Inorganic Impurities - the presence of inorganic material in coal can cause both an environmental hazard and adversely impact combustor and boiler operation, and (3) Pollutant Formation - coal combustion increases the emission of both nitrogen and sulfur oxides over oil and gas combustion. This report documents the development efforts of the Vortex Containment Combustor (VCC) at the prototype scale (3 x 10W Btu/h). Successful development of the VCC would offer solutions to the problems listed above and make coal the fuel of choice in boiler and furnace applications. The VCC features separation and rejection of ash particles from the exhaust gas stream, high power densities to save space in retrofit applications, high combustion and vortex efficiency (i.e., low pressure losses), and adaptability to pollution control concepts for NO/sub x/ and SO/sub x/. In order to reach high power densities, the VCC burns the coal in a free-flight mode rather than rely on wall layer combustion, as is the case with conventional cyclone combustors. The objectives of this study included demonstration of the VCC as a coal burning device, performance of an engineering and economic analysis, and development of an approach for further evaluation of the VCC concept. 15 refs., 71 figs., 7 tabs.

• Research Organization: Energy and Environmental Research Corp., Irvine, CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC22-83PC60420
• OSTI ID: 6266868
• Report Number(s): DOE/PC/60420-T3; ON: DE86005472
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
014000 -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Combustion
42 ENGINEERING
421000* -- Engineering-- Combustion Systems
AERODYNAMICS
AIR POLLUTION CONTROL
BOILERS
CHALCOGENIDES
COMBUSTORS
CONTROL
CYCLONE COMBUSTORS
DATA
DESIGN
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
DISPERSIONS
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
EQUATIONS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLOW MODELS
FLUID MECHANICS
FUEL SLURRIES
FUELS
INFORMATION
MARKET
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
MIXTURES
NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN OXIDES
NUMERICAL DATA
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
POLLUTION CONTROL
RETROFITTING
SLURRIES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR DIOXIDE
SULFUR OXIDES
SUSPENSIONS
TESTING