ULTRA LOW NOx INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR NOx EMISSION CONTROL FROM COAL-FIRED BOILERS
ALSTOM Power Inc.'s Power Plant Laboratories, working in concert with ALSTOM Power's Performance Projects Group, has teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE NETL) to conduct a comprehensive study to develop/evaluate low-cost, efficient NOx control technologies for retrofit to pulverized coal fired utility boilers. The objective of this project was to develop retrofit NOx control technology to achieve less than 0.15 lb/MMBtu NOx (for bituminous coals) and 0.10 lb/MMBtu NOx (for subbituminous coals) from existing pulverized coal fired utility boilers at a cost which is at least 25% less than SCR technology. Efficient control of NOx is seen as an important, enabling step in keeping coal as a viable part of the national energy mix in this century, and beyond. Presently 57% of U.S. electrical generation is coal based, and the Energy Information Agency projects that coal will maintain a lead in U.S. power generation over all other fuel sources for decades (EIA 1998 Energy Forecast). Yet, coal-based power is being strongly challenged by society's ever-increasing desire for an improved environment and the resultant improvement in health and safety. The needs of the electric-utility industry are to improve environmental performance, while simultaneously improving overall plant economics. This means that emissions control technology is needed with very low capital and operating costs. This project has responded to the industry's need for low NOx emissions by evaluating ideas that can be adapted to present pulverized coal fired systems, be they conventional or low NOx firing systems. The TFS 2000{trademark} firing system has been the ALSTOM Power Inc. commercial offering producing the lowest NOx emission levels. In this project, the TFS 2000{trademark} firing system served as a basis for comparison to other low NOx systems evaluated and was the foundation upon which refinements were made to further improve NOx emissions and related combustion performance. Three coals were evaluated during the bench-scale and large pilot-scale testing tasks. The three coals ranged from a very reactive Powder River Basin coal (PRB) to a moderately reactive Midwestern bituminous coal (HVB) to a less reactive medium volatile Eastern bituminous coal (MVB). Bench-scale testing was comprised of standard ASTM properties evaluation, plus more detailed characterization of fuel properties through drop tube furnace testing and thermogravimetric analysis.
- Research Organization:
- Alstom Power Inc. (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-00NT40754
- OSTI ID:
- 821200
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 30 Dec 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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