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The basic national condition that is dominated by coal will not alter in the foreseeable future. Coal-fired boiler is the main equipment for coal utilization, and cyclone burner is a practical type of burner. There is a cyclone formation, a primary air duct inside the center air duct, and a secondary air duct. Introducing a small stream of pulverized coal gas or oil mist stream or gas directly into the reflux zone in the center duct ignites first a stable combustion and a small fluctuation of ignition pressure. In this paper, the variation of furnace temperature for cyclone pulverized coal burner corresponding to different excess air factors and the composition of gases such as O2, CO, CO2, and NOX produced by combustion were investigated using fluent software. A single cyclone pulverized coal burner from an actual coal-fired boiler is used, and a combustion zone applicable to the study of a single pulverized coal burner is established to study the actual operation of a single pulverized coal burner at different excess air coefficients. The findings indicate that the ignition position of pulverized coal combustion advances with decreasing α (Excess Air Factors); however, the length of the produced high-temperature flame gets shorter. As the value of α decreases, the burnout in the furnace decreases and the CO emission concentration increases, with a maximum CO mole fraction of 0.38% at α = 1.2 and a maximum CO mole fraction of 3.13% at the axial position when α decreases to 0.8. The furnace's concentration of NOX, the NOX emission level decreases significantly with decreasing α. The NOX mole mass increases gradually with increasing α, and in the bottom portion of the primary combustion zone, more NOX is produced. The concentration of NOX in the chamber changes significantly after α exceeds 1.0, and the NOX at the outlet surges from 417.25 ppm to 801.07 ppm, which is attributed to the increase in the average temperature of the chamber, which promotes the generation of thermophilic NOX. The distribution pattern of O2 mole fraction along the furnace height cross-section at different excess air factors is basically the same, with a maximum at the burner inlet and a gradual decrease in the O2 content as it enters the combustion chamber to react with the pulverized coal in a combustion reaction. The value of α = 0.8 when the air supply is obviously insufficient, the fuel cannot be fully combusted, and only a small amount of CO2 is produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the low-load stable combustion capacity of a low-grade coal-fired boiler, this study proposed to reform C-layer secondary air, which was then used to improve the ignition and combustion stability of coal/airflow of a 600 MWe Foster Wheeler down-fired boiler. Cold airflow experiments and industrial measurements were carried out to investigate the influence of the new C-layer secondary air on the aerodynamic and combustion characteristics at low load under different C-layer secondary air ratios and damper openings, respectively. The flow and mixing characteristics of the C-layer secondary air and coal/airflow, the flue gas temperature and NOx, O2, and CO concentration distributions in the furnace at low load were examined. With increase in the C-layer secondary air ratio, the flow range of coal/airflow gradually expanded. The mixing distance first increased and then decreased. At an air ratio of 25%, the mixing distance was the longest. Industrial measurements showed that compared with that at the C-layer secondary air damper opening of 0%, the coal/airflow ignited earlier at 40% (corresponding to the C-layer secondary air ratio of 23.73%), and the flue gas temperature in the furnace increased substantially. At C-layer secondary air damper opening of 0%, 20%, and 40%, carbon content in the fly ash was 4.62%, 5.32%, and 4.20%, respectively. The respective NOx emissions at the furnace exits were 450 mg/Nm3, 378 mg/Nm3, and 427 mg/Nm3, (O2 = 6%). In actual operation, 40% is recommended as the optimal C-layer secondary air damper opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, there’s a lack of combustion visualization in the combustion control of heating boilers. To understand the combustion of coal in the furnace, only experienced workers can observe it through visual inspection. Using infrared thermal imaging technology to monitor the combustion can realize combustion visualization. This paper analyzed and solved two problems: the installation position and number of infrared cameras, and the infeasible of using infrared cameras observing the combustion condition in the furnace through heat-resistant glass. Monitored parameters such as oxygen content, furnace temperature and smoke exhaust temperature, and monitored the concentration of PM, NOx, and SO2 in the main atmospheric pollutants in the flue gas. After calculation, the air leakage coefficient when the inspection doors are opened for observation is 0.04. This value still includes the sum of air leakage from coal hopper, furnace door, grate side seal, peep holes and other parts. The monitored average emission concentration of PM decreased by 16.28%, from which we can concluded that the use of thermal imaging technology to monitor the combustion in the furnace is conducive to emission reduction. The application of thermal imaging technology implementation of coalfired boiler combustion visualization is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To deal with environmental problems caused by NOx production in thermal plants, it is imperative to establish a reliable model to predict NOx concentration in the combustion process. NOx formation in a coal‐fired boiler is complex, and many variables affect NOx emissions. The effective information fusion of these variables can improve the accuracy of NOx concentration prediction. However, the existing NOx prediction algorithms based on thermal parameters rarely consider the mechanical knowledge of the boiler operation, and it is not easy to incorporate the topological information of production into modelling. Therefore, a graph convolutional network is proposed for NOx emission prediction. First, the key variables affecting NOx generation are selected according to the knowledge and the random forest‐based variable importance. Then, the model structure is designed by exploring the topological information among thermal variables to capture the complex spatial dependence. The model inputs are constructed by coding different operation variables, and the adjacency matrix is generated according to the correlation information between variables, which can fuse data information and reduce redundancy. On this basis, the prediction model of NOx concentration is established. Historical data from a 660 MW coal‐fired boiler are used in the experiment. The prediction results show that the proposed model can effectively fuse the information of characteristic variables and fully exploit the non‐linear mapping relationship between process variables and NOx emission. When compared with three typical models in NOx modelling, the proposed model has better performance with a determination coefficient of 0.906. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cofiring sludge with coal based on existing power plants is a promising method to realize harmless recycling treatment for sludge disposal. However, the influences of sludge addition on NOx emission are still controversial. Moreover, the optimal operating strategies for the cocombustion boiler need further investigations. In this study, the influences of sludge blending ratio, moisture content, sludge inlet position, and air-staging parameter on the combustion characteristics and NOx emission behaviors in a 330-MW boiler were analyzed numerically. The results show that with the increase of sludge blending ratio, the flue gas temperature in the primary zone decreases. The overall burnout ratio declines with the addition of sludge due to the higher ash and moisture contents. Although the sludge contains more N than coal, the NOx emissions in the cofiring case are lower than those in the coal-fired case due to the lower temperature and stronger reducing atmosphere in the primary zone. Reducing the moisture in the sludge is beneficial to the combustion within the furnace. Nevertheless, because of the higher temperature and lower CO concentration within the furnace, the NOx concentration at the furnace outlet increases. For wall-fired boilers, feeding the sludge from the lower burners should be avoided considering the potential surge in NOx emission. When the excess air ratio in the primary zone increases from 0.74 to 0.96, the NOx concentration at the furnace outlet rises by 58%. Hence, although relatively lower excess air ratio in the primary zone could bring adverse impacts on the burnout behaviors, air-staging combustion is still necessary when cofiring sludge in the coal-fired boiler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ammonia (NH 3), as a potential carbon-free alternative fuel, can be blended into coal-fired boiler to achieve significant pollution reduction and carbon reduction, but there are concerns about high NOx emissions due to high nitrogen content. According to the characteristics of coal/NH 3 co-combustion, a dual-fuel co-combustion model with strong adaptability and high accuracy was established in this study through Chemkin software to study the influence of different injection positions and blending ratios on combustion characteristics and NOx generation process. Then, the co-combustion model was applied to the three-dimensional CFD calculation process of a 330 MWe front-fired boiler, and the combustion characteristics, NOx distribution and reaction process were calculated when cal. 20% NH 3 was blended in the primary air. The results show that when cal. 20% NH 3 is blended, the change of NO content mainly occurs in ignition zone and flame zone, and the transformation behavior of N in NH 3 is optimized to a 15-step elementary reaction; The temperature distribution in the furnace is similar, and the average temperature at the furnace outlet decreases from 1033 °C to 988 °C, while NH 3 have a preferential combustion reaction with air than coal, resulting in a decrease in the burnout rate of coal; The NOx concentration at the furnace outlet decreases from 355 mg/Nm3 to 281 mg/Nm3, which is 20.85% lower than that under the pure coal burning condition, and the variation range of O 2 concentration and unburned NH 3 concentration is small. • The NO transformation behavior was optimized to a 15-step elementary reaction. • The change of NO content mainly occurred in the IZ and FZ when blending cal. 20% NH 3. • The burnout rate of pulverized coal was reduced by blending NH 3. • NOx concentration at the furnace outlet reduced by 20.85% when blending cal. 20% NH 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel model with a parallel structure is proposed to predict NOx emissions from coal‐fired boilers by using historical operational data, coal properties, and convolutional neural networks. The model inputs are processed and passed into three parallel subnetworks with well‐designed building blocks. The features learned by the three subnetworks are fused and used to predict NOx emissions from a 330‐MW pulverized coal‐fired utility boiler. A comprehensive comparison of different prediction models based on deep learning algorithms shows that the prediction model proposed in this paper outperforms other prediction models in terms of root mean square error criteria. The results show that the parallel structure is key to obtaining accurate predictions while reducing model complexity. This suggests that the model's performance can be improved by designing the model architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient use of coal resources and the safe operation of coal-fired boilers are hindered by high-temperature corrosion caused by corrosive sulphur components. To predict the impact of sulphur–nitrogen interactions on sulphur's evolution and its mechanism of action, a conventional sulphur component evolution model (uS–N) and an improved sulphur component evolution model (S–N) that considers sulphur–nitrogen interactions were proposed in the present study. The models were built using OpenFOAM–v8 software for the coal combustion process, and the generation of SO2, H2S, COS, and CS2 was simulated and analysed under different air excess coefficients. The simulations were conducted to analyse the patterns of SO2, H2S, COS, and CS2 generation at different air excess factors. The results show that, compared with the uS–N condition, the simulated values of coal combustion products (SO2, H2S, COS, and CS2) under the S–N condition were closer to the experimental values, and the errors of different sulphur components at the furnace exit were all less than 5%. As such, the S–N model can more accurately predict the evolution of sulphur components. In the simulation range, when the air excess factor increased from 0.7 to 0.9, the production rate of SO2 increased, while the production rates of corrosive sulphur components H2S, COS, and CS2 decreased significantly by 41.3%, 34.8%, and 53.8%, respectively. Further, the mechanism of the effect of sulphur–nitrogen interactions on the generation rates of different components was revealed at different air excess coefficients. Here, the effect of sulphur–nitrogen interactions on SO2 and COS was found to be more significant at smaller air excess coefficients, and the effect of sulphur–nitrogen interactions on H2S and CS2 was more significant at larger air excess coefficients. The present study can provide a theoretical basis for predicting the evolution of sulphur components during coal combustion and improving the high-temperature corrosion problems caused by such a process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ammonia (NH3), as a derivative of hydrogen and energy carrier, is regarded as a low-carbon fuel provided that it is produced from a renewable source or a carbon abated process of fossil fuel. Co-firing ammonia with coal is a promising option for pulverized coal-fired power plants to reduce CO2 emission. Applying the co-firing in an existing pulverized coal-fired boiler can achieve satisfying combustion performance in the furnace but may affect the boiler performance. In the present work, a thermal calculation method was employed to evaluate the impact of ammonia co-firing on the boiler performance of an existing 600 MW supercritical utility boiler, covering the co-firing ratio range up to 40% (on heat basis). The calculations indicated that, as compared to sole coal combustion, co-firing ammonia changed the volume and composition and consequently the temperature and heat transfer characteristics of the flue gas. These resulted in increased variations in the heat transfer performance of the boiler with increasing of the co-firing ratio. The evaluations revealed that co-firing up to 20% ammonia in the existing boiler is feasible with the boiler performance not being considerably affected. However, the distribution of the heat transferred from the flue gas to boiler heat exchangers is significantly deteriorated at higher ratios (30% and 40%), resulting in over-temperature of the superheated steam, under-temperature of the reheated steam and considerable reduction in boiler thermal efficiency. It implies retrofits on the heat exchangers required for accommodating higher ratio co-firing in the existing boiler. The comparison study showed that co-firing 20% ammonia provides a superior boiler performance over co-firing 20% biomass producing gases and blast furnace gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides an outlook on future directions of research and the possible applications for pulverized coal-fired boilers. One potential direction for future research is to focus on the ways to improve the efficiency of pulverized coal-fired boilers. This could involve developing new combustion technologies that are able to more thoroughly burn the coal and produce less waste or finding ways to capture and use the excess heat that is generated during the combustion process. The pulverized coal combustion process in power boilers is still being improved by the preliminary cleaning of coal and the use of various catalytic additives. Another area of research that could be valuable is the development of advanced control systems and monitoring technologies for pulverized coal-fired boilers. These systems could be used to optimize the performance of the boiler and ensure that it is operating at maximum efficiency while also providing real-time data on the condition of the boiler and any potential problems that may arise. The analysis of literature shows that several future paths of development and scientific research related to the technology of pulverized coal combustion in boilers can be distinguished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The variations in the boiler operation conditions have a great effect on the combustion characteristics and the pollutant formation in furnaces. This work aims to investigate the effects of operational parameters on NOx formation and its distribution in furnaces using the numerical simulation method to obtain the optimum control strategy for reducing NOx emissions. The numerical simulation models of pulverized coal combustion in furnaces involving flow, heat transfer, combustion and NOx formation are established. Taking a 600 MW supercritical opposed firing pulverized coal boiler as the study object, a full-scale three-dimensional physical model of the boiler is constructed with Gambit software. On this basis, the pulverized coal combustion and the NOx formation under various boiler loads are numerically simulated using the software of Ansys Fluent 2021R1, and the accuracy and the reliability of the models established are verified by comparing the simulation data with the field test data. According to the combustion numerical simulation of 128 groups of operating conditions, the effects of boiler load, the air rate and the air temperature on combustion and NOx formation have been emphatically investigated. The simulation results indicate that the formation of NOx and the NOx concentration distribution are mainly affected by the oxygen concentration and the temperature in the furnace. Especially, the effects of the variation in the excess air coefficient, the over-fire air (OFA) ratio, the primary air ratio and the internal secondary air ratio on NOx concentration distribution vary greatly. When the air temperature increases the overall NOx concentration in the furnace increases, and the influence of the secondary air temperature and the OFA temperature is greater than that of the primary air temperature. Large amounts of simulation data are a necessary data source for further study on the NOx prediction model at the economizer outlet, which can improve the prediction ability and the generalization ability of the NOx prediction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this study, a novel low NOx burner is proposed and tested on a 40 MW pilot pulverized coal combustion system, aiming to experimentally investigate the impact of preheating temperature, air ratio distribution, and thermal power on furnace combustion characteristics. The experimental results demonstrate that the pulverized coal could be preheated stably above 700 °C in the designed burner. Furthermore, an increase in preheating temperature from 500 °C to 750 °C corresponds to a proportional rise in the total volume fraction of combustible pyrolysis gases released from pulverized coal, ranging from 18.34 % to 22.85 %. Consequently, the release and combustion of pyrolysis gases effectively improve the combustion characteristics within the boiler furnace and lead to reduced NOx emissions at the furnace outlet. When the thermal power is increased from 22.5 MW to 37.5 MW, the NOx emissions at the furnace output range from 46.8 mg/Nm3 to 98.3 mg/Nm3 (at 9 % O 2). Under a specific thermal power of 25MW th , the boiler furnace output NOx emissions are reduced to 47.9 mg/Nm3 (@9 % O 2) without any additional NOx reduction equipment. These findings offer valuable insights for advancing cleaner and more efficient low-NOx pulverized coal combustion technology. • Low NOx technology for coal-fired boiler: a novel internal combustion burner. • NOx reduction path analysis combined with prepyrolysis treatment and air staging. • Impact of prepyrolysis temperature and air ratio on NOx emissions was studied. • Applicability for achieving ultra-low NOx emissions without SCR system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal-fired power plants remain a significant source of CO 2 emission, NH 3 /coal co-firing in existing coal-fired boilers can rapidly and effectively reduce CO 2 emissions. However, the unique physicochemical properties of NH 3 result in unstable combustion and high NO x emissions. Superfine pulverized coal combustion and moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion are two advanced technologies with stable combustion and low NO x emissions. This study systematically investigated the coupling of these two technologies in NH 3 /coal co-combustion. Results show that the synergistic effect of superfine pulverized coal and MILD combustion ensures stable NH 3 /coal flame propagation, with a shorter lift-off distance and a higher peak temperature (70 K–100 K increase) under higher NH 3 blending ratio (NBR) conditions. As the NBR increases from 0 to 40 cal%, the maximum Da s-O2 for the superfine particles (18 μm) decreases from 0.55 to 0.49, while for normal particles (125 μm), it decreases from 3.9 to 3.4. The combustion state of superfine particles more easily approaches the MILD combustion state. The value of R char-H2O /R char-CO2 increases from 0.64 to 1.93, indicating the C Char -H 2 O reaction dominates the char gasification behavior. Compared to that for normal particles, the NO emission concentrations for superfine particles combustion at 0, 10 cal% and 20 cal% NBR were reduced by 48 %, 64 % and 47 %, respectively. These findings provide new insights and theoretical guidance for stable combustion and low NO x emissions of NH 3 /coal co-firing. [Display omitted] • Coupling MILD with superfine particle combustion in NH 3 /coal co-firing is proposed. • The combustion state of the superfine particle is closer to the MILD regime. • C Char -H 2 O reaction dominates the char gasification behaviors at high NBRs. • The NO emission of superfine particles are lower than those for normal particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important source of electricity production in China, coal-fired power boiler still emits high concentrations of pollutants such as particulate matter (PM) due to large amounts of flue gas. In this study, filterable and condensable PM (CPM) were sampled in three coal-fired units. In particular, the effects of unit load and flue gas temperatures on organic/inorganic components of CPM were investigated. The emission concentration of total PM reached the lowest at the highest load of the coal-fired unit. CPM, especially the organic components in it, accounted for a high proportion of the total particulates emitted from three units. The representative organic components hydrocarbons and esters accounted for more than 40% of CPM from coal combustion, while the representative inorganic component SO42− had the highest emission concentration. The emission concentration of representative organic components and most inorganic components in CPM was lowest when the temperature of coal-fired flue gas was lowest. It was noted that the effect of operating load and flue gas temperature on the distribution of organic compounds in CPM is limited when raw coal properties are similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This force balance equates the particle inertia with the forces acting on the particle, and can be written as HT ht Graph (16)where, I F i SB I x i sb is an additional acceleration term, HT ht is the drag force per unit particle mass. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Oxy-fuel combustion is a key technology to realize CO2 capture and storage in coal-fired power boilers in the future. In recent years, there have been extensive studies on it. This review summarizes some key results of fundamental research on oxy-coal combustion. By comparing with traditional coal-fired boiler with air combustion in power station, the typical characteristics of oxy-coal combustion are introduced from four aspects: combustion, heat transfer, pollutant emission, and numerical simulation; so that readers have a relatively comprehensive understanding of fundamental research on oxy-fuel combustion. Furthermore, some scientific issues in future research are summarized. The paper is both academic and popular, providing basic knowledge and academic direction inspiration for scholars or graduate students who are about to engage in oxy-fuel combustion research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Existing H2S generation models are mainly applied in laboratory-scale models and thoughtless about the fuel sulfur release characteristics in fuel-rich zone. So, a novel H2S generation model is proposed for describing the H2S formation characteristics of real-scale boilers in this work. It consists of two parts: fuel sulfur release and chemical reactions. The ratio of the gasification rate to the consumption rate for each char particle is calculated in coal combustion model through the user-defined function (UDF) approach, which is delivered to the H2S generation model for determining the proportions of char sulfur converted to COS and SO2. The numerical results show that the proportions of char sulfur converted to H2S are about 0.545 over the excess air coefficient range from 0.6 to 1.2. The strongly reducing atmosphere could just accelerate the H2S formation to a certain extent in the devolatilization stage. For a 600 MW tangentially coal-fired boiler, the H2S concentration over 400 mg∙kg−1 appears mainly in the zone below burner A and the zone between burner E and the separated over-fire air nozzle. This study is intended to guide for predicting possible corrosion zone and delivering targeted solutions for inhibiting metal corrosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co‐firing biomass in an existing coal combustion boiler is a promising way to mitigate carbon emission in the context of global carbon neutrality. This paper investigated the effect of biomass injection location on combustion and NOX formation characteristics in a 300‐MWe tangential boiler co‐firing with coal. Numerical models have been validated against experimental measurement for both pure coal firing and biomass/coal co‐firing cases. Compared to pure coal firing, co‐firing case with biomass injected into the highest layer can sustain a comparable temperature distribution profile along the furnace height, and generate a lower NO emission by around 20 ppm. By moving the biomass injection location downward, the temperature difference between co‐firing and pure coal firing cases becomes larger, and the final NO emission increases continually from 222 to 240 ppm. When biomass is injected through the lowest layer, N element in biomass volatile is oxidized to NO directly because of the abundant oxygen; thus, NO emission turns to be the highest among all co‐firing cases. Contrarily, when biomass is injected through the highest layer, the majority of N in biomass volatile is released as NH3, and it further acts as a reduction agent for NO, thus leading to the lowest NO emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal calorific value is one of the main considerations for using coal as a power plant fuel. In addition, the requirements for indications of slagging and fouling are also important to maintain combustion efficiency. However, coal power plants often experience problems in boiler operations due to the use of certain types of coal, even though they have a relatively high calorific value. This research investigates the effect of coal blending on ash fouling and slagging in an experimental investigation using a drop tube furnace with or without additives. Five different types of coal from different locations have been used in this study. Pulverized low-rank coal samples are burned in a drop tube furnace at 1,175°C with probe temperatures of 550°C and 600°C, corresponding to the combustion chamber of 600 MW power plants, including superheater and reheater areas. The ash particles' characteristics and material composition were also analyzed using scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. All coal mixture combinations demonstrated potential as a fuel for power plants that use pulverized coal-fired boilers. Because of its capacity to reduce slagging and fouling potentials, combining coal blending with the use of chemical additives yielded the greatest results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a coupled heat transfer model for coal-fired boilers that integrates boiler's fire side computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solution with the boiler's steam cycle, and thus, can predict the boiler steam temperatures subject to different boiler design and operation conditions. In this coupled model, the heat transfer submodels describing the gas-steam heat exchange for each part of boiler heating surfaces are integrated by exchanging the steam temperatures iteratively. This coupled heat transfer model is self-consistent since it ensures the fire side heat transfer solution to always coincide with the steam temperature changes across each boiler heating surface. This model is specifically designed to provide efficient computational solutions to engineering boiler problems in which the changes of boiler steam temperatures subject to different boiler design and operation conditions are of the major concerns. This model is applied to a 320 MW subcritical boiler to evaluate the impacts of coal switching and boiler operation adjustment on boiler's heat transfer distributions and steam temperatures. The simulation results demonstrate that this model can effectively capture the complex coupled heat transfer behavior between the fire and steam sides of boiler and serve as an efficient predictive tool for engineering boiler problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In order to achieve ultra-low NOx emissions, the effects of total excess air coefficient, air coefficient in main combustion zone, blended-coal combustion, and ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio on a 330 MW coal-fired boiler combustion were studied by numerical simulation. The results show that the velocity field and temperature field in the furnace have synergy, the better the synergy is, the faster the temperature rises, and the more NOx it generates. Compared before and after urea spraying, the NOx concentration decreased with the decrease of the total excess air coefficient, the optimum total excess air coefficient is about 1.15, and the denitrification rate is as high as 76.2%. The smaller the air coefficient in the main combustion zone is, the smaller the NOx concentration is. The optimum air coefficient in the main combustion zone is about 0.92, and the denitrification rate is 85%. After urea injection, the denitrification rate of high volatile coal combustion is higher than that of low volatile coal combustion, and the reasonable blending mode of coal can reduce NOx emissions. The larger the ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio is, the lower the NOx concentration is. When the ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio is greater than 2, the amount of ammonia escape at the flue outlet exceeds the standard. When the ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio is less than 1, the NOx concentration at the flue outlet is greater than that before urea injection. The optimal ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio is about 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Studied the effects of NH 3 cofiring ratio, injection mode and OFA on NO x emission. • NO x exhibited a variety of trends under different injection modes and OFA rates. • Revealed all the different NO x trends are governed by the same NO mechanism. • Found air-staging is not always effective in the NO x reduction of NH 3 cofiring. Ammonia (NH 3) cofiring is a promising approach to reduce the CO 2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. However, the potential drastic increase of NO x emissions may inhibit the wide implementation of NH 3 cofiring. To explore the potential NO x control strategies, the effects of NH 3 cofiring ratio (R N H 3 ), NH 3 injection mode and overfire air (OFA) rates on the NO x emission characteristics of NH 3 /coal cofiring are studied in a test furnace that allow for flexible control of the injection positions and combustion environment of NH 3. The results show that when NH 3 is injected with coal stream (top mixing mode), the NO x emissions increase and then decrease with the increase of R N H 3 under all OFA rates. However, when NH 3 is fed through the side port of furnace separately (side mixing mode), the NO x emissions exhibit distinct trends under different OFA rates. Under lower OFA rates, the NO x emissions show monotonical decrease with the increase of R N H 3 , while under higher OFA rates the NO x emissions first decrease and then increase with the increase of R N H 3 . Consequently, higher OFA rates could produce higher NO x emissions than lower OFA rates. This indicates that air-staging is not always effective in the NO x reduction of NH 3 cofiring. Thus, although the side mixing mode of NH 3 cofiring exhibits overall better performance in NO x control, caution is needed to accommodate the OFA rate with NH 3 cofiring ratio. Although a variety of trends of NO x emissions were observed in this study, the results demonstrate that all these trends are in fact governed by the same mechanism – the competition between the NO-formation and NO-reduction reactions of NH 3 in the varying O 2 environment in the furnace. By creating appropriate O 2 environment in the furnace, the NO x emissions of NH 3 /coal cofiring could be substantially lower than that of pure coal combustion. The findings of these paper are instrumental in the design and operation of NH 3 cofiring system in full scale coal-fired boilers to achieve effective NO x control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• First industrial scale NH 3 -coal cofiring testing under high cofiring ratios. • Demonstrate the technical feasibility of NH 3 cofiring in large-scale boilers. • Find optimal SOFA ratio in the range of 15–20 % for NO x and fuel burnout. • Find optimal boiler O 2 in the range of 3.0–3.7 % for NO x and NH 3 slip control. This paper reports the first industrial scale testing on ammonia (NH 3) cofiring in a 40 MW th coal-fired boiler under high ammonia cofiring ratio (E N H 3 , percent of thermal input) ranging from 0 % to 25 %. A full-scale cofiring swirl burner is designed to inject NH 3 gas with pulverized coal through the primary air pipe of the burner. The effects of ammonia cofiring ratio and key boiler operating parameters on boiler NO x emission and fuel burnout are examined. The results show that the boiler can establish stable ignition and combustion under all ammonia cofiring conditions in this study. The burnout of coal under ammonia cofiring conditions are better than those of coal combustion cases. Overfire air (SOFA) has significant influences on boiler NO x emission and burnout of coal and NH 3. It is found that there exists optimal SOFA ratio in the range of 15–20 % within which both boiler NO x emission and NH 3 slip can be well controlled. Under 20 % SOFA ratio, boiler NO x emission tends to increase and then decrease with the increase of E N H 3 reaching the peak value under E N H 3 = 5 %. As a result, the NO x emission can be reduced to the level lower than that of coal combustion case under E N H 3 > 20 %. Boiler excess O 2 also shows significant influences on boiler NO x emission and NH 3 slip. With the decrease of boiler O 2 , boiler NO x emission decreases significantly while NH 3 slip increases rapidly. It is found that there exists optimal boiler O 2 in the range of 3.0–3.7 % within which both boiler NO x emission and NH 3 slip can be kept at relatively low levels. Injection of NH 3 from the side wall of furnace is also tested in this study. The NO x emission shows similar trends with the change of E N H 3 in the range of 0–20 %. However, above this range the NO x emission tends to increase with further increase of E N H 3 . The results of this paper demonstrate the technical feasibility of NH 3 cofiring in large-scale coal-fired boilers under high cofiring ratios and provide important guidance to the operation of boilers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ultra-low NOx emissions mechanism in CFB boilers with finer particles is analyzed. • A phase division criterion for wide-size distribution particles is developed. • The generalized QC-EMMS drag model describes the heterogeneous structures. • Revealing particle size effects on NOx in dense and dilute phases. • Smaller particles enhance NOx catalytic reduction with greater surface area. Industrial practice has confirmed that decreasing the bed material size substantially diminishes nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in coal-fired circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers. This reduction allows for compliance with the stringent ultra-low emissions standard (NOx < 50 mg/Nm3@6%O₂, dry) proposed by the Chinese government, all without the need for supplementary denitrification devices. Consequently, it becomes essential to delve into the mechanisms through which particle size, as a gas–solid flow characteristic, directly affects the chemical reaction dynamics within the coal combustion process. Due to the difficulty of field tests, this paper employs the Eulerian-Eulerian numerical method suitable for wide particle size distributions to investigate the impact of bed material particle size on gas–solid flow and NOx concentration. Furthermore, the generalized QC-EMMS drag model is utilized to predict the heterogeneous flow across varying particle size conditions. Industrial test data validated the simulation accuracy, with prediction errors of bed pressure drop, temperature, and NOx emission concentration ranging from 5 % to 8.1 %. The analysis revealed that the particle concentration distribution heterogeneity decreases as the particle size diminishes. The variation trends of NOx with particle size exhibit distinct differences between the lower dense phase region and the upper dilute phase region within the bed. For finer bed material particles, the high NOx concentration generated in the dense phase region experiences a more thorough reduction in the dilute phase region. Through the analysis of material concentration and reaction rate, it is believed that this phenomenon is related to the increased catalytic effect of fine ash particles in the dilute phase region, that is, the reduction in particle size leads to an increase in catalytic specific surface area, enhancing NOx reduction, thus achieving ultra-low emissions at the outlet. These research results provide theoretical support for further development of ultra-low emission coal-fired CFB boilers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hybrid dewatering and air-preheating system mounted to coal-fired boiler was investigated. • New attainable ideal and unavoidable cases for combustion process were identified. • Improved potential of combustion system was conducted as 74.4%. • The critical dewatered moisture content was found as 20%. • A saving of about 29.54% in fuel consumption was determined. In this study, a parametric advanced exergy analysis was conducted for the waste heat recovery of a pulverized coal-fired power plant. In this aim, a new attainable ideal and the technically available unavoidable case for the combustion process were identified. Under the identified improved potential term, different unavoidable cases were parametrically investigated for the hybrid dewatering and air preheating process to improve the combustion process. In this aim, different removed moisture contents, air preheating conditions, and effectiveness of both internal and external heat exchangers were thermodynamically evaluated in terms of the combustion process. The improved potential was calculated as 74.4% for the whole combustion system. The critical moisture removal ratio was calculated as 20%. The effects of rehabilitation on improved potential were found as 2.80 points per 1% of effectiveness increase for the self (internal) heat exchangers of the boiler, 1.68 points per 1% of effectiveness increase for HE-I and HE-II (external heat exchangers), and 0.62 points per 1% increase of dewatered moisture ratio. Besides, a saving of about 29.54% was determined in fuel consumption for the most appropriate unavoidable condition. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical simulations have been conducted to study combustion characteristics of tangentially fired pulverized-coal boiler. A 600 MW tangentially coal-fired boiler was used for investigating the effect of platen super-heaters on the temperature, species distributions and heat transfer. Two furnace models were established, whose difference lies in modelling super-heaters or not. Results show that modelling platen super-heaters is conducive to precisely predict the temperature, species (CO, CO2, O2) and heat flux in the platen zone and has a weak influence on these data in zones below the platen. Modelling platen super-heaters has little influence on the NOx prediction. Platen super-heaters obviously decrease heat absorbed by water-wall nearby and affects heat distribution coefficient of furnace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The goal of this research is to establish the applicability of an electrostatic measuring technique for monitoring the quality of a coal-milling process in direct-firing systems. Such systems are used in large steam boilers fired with low-rank coal where the pulverized coal is transported pneumatically from the mills to the burner nozzles via ducts with large cross-sections. The electrostatic measuring method, in connection with intrusive rod-type sensors, was studied because it provides good spatial sensitivity and cost effectiveness. A laboratory test rig was constructed, where the pulverized coal carried by ambient air was employed for the experiments emulating the pneumatic transport of coal particles in direct-firing systems. The test rig enables an extensive variation of the most influential parameters, like the mass-flow, the velocity and the size of the particles. A linear, multi-regression analysis of the results of the experiments was carried out and the appropriate regression model enabling a determination of the mean diameter of the particles using the electrostatic signal was chosen. Based on the results of the study the electrostatic measuring technique can be used for monitoring the size of pneumatically transported particles. The appropriate regression model needs to be chosen for each particular application to describe the dependency of the acquired electrostatic signal on the influential parameters of the pneumatic transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• A model of biomass gasification coupled with coal-fired boiler is proposed. • The performance of the coupled system at various loads is studied. • The coupled system efficiency reaches 84% at optimum conditions for various boiler loads. • The maximum reductions of NO and SO 2 emissions reach 5.99% and 16.80% respectively. • An efficient utilization method for straw in a coal-fired power plant is provided. The utilization of agricultural wastes in existing pulverized coal power plants is an attractive option to alleviate environmental pollution and reduce over-exploitation of fossil fuels. A coupled system model of biomass gasification coupled to a coal-fired boiler is established in Aspen Plus and successfully validated by experimental data. A 20 t/h straw gasifier operates at the rated capacity and the straw gas is introduced to the boiler running at different loads. The co-firing ratio increases with the reduction of boiler load. Results indicate that the main parameters, such as furnace combustion temperature, flue gas temperature, and NO and SO 2 emission decrease with the reduction of boiler load. Compared to pure coal combustion, co-firing can reduce the furnace combustion temperature and increase the flue gases temperature. More importantly, the coal consumption, and NO and SO 2 emissions are reduced at all loads, especially at lower loads. The excess air ratio should be adjusted to obtain the optimum combustion performance in the furnace, but there is still a slight drop of around 0.2% in boiler efficiency when co-firing. Meanwhile, the coupled system efficiency at various loads can reach slightly more than 84% under optimum conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Due to the coal combustion that generates halides, steel components can confront hot corrosion during applications at high temperature. The hot-dipping aluminum (HDA) was operated on the 9Cr–Mo steel (grade 91) to form the iron aluminide layer. A hot corrosion-loading test of aluminized grade 91 (HDA-91) was carried out by covering a salt mixture of NaCl/Na2SO4 under static load ranging from 75 to 100 MPa at 600 °C and 700 °C, respectively. The failure mechanism was assessed after various elongations using scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The results showed that HDA-91 presented higher hot corrosion resistance than the uncoated grade 91. The aluminide layer formed a higher ductility oxide and prevented the substrate form grain-boundary oxidation at high temperatures, resulting in durability. The results also revealed a significant improvement in reduction of area during the hot corrosion-loading test for grade 91 that underwent HDA treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An understanding of the radial air staging method for PC utilization is improved and the key parameter (OFA distribution) is optimized. • Compared to the traditional axial air staging method, for the radial air staging method, the OFA distribution has a greater effect on the heat release from PC particles. • The increased R IO is not conducive to the rapid devolatilization from PC particles, resulting in poorer combustion stability of the boiler. • The increased R IO promotes the oxidation reaction of N released from PC particles, which is detrimental to boiler NO x emission reduction. • The advanced mixture of the OFA with the main airflow facilitates the burnout of the PC particles as the R IO increases. Radial air staging is an innovative method for reducing NO x emissions from coal-fired boilers compared to conventional axial air staging. However, an important issue in using this method is to set the over-fired air (OFA) distribution rationally to achieve good boiler performance. This paper aims to optimize the OFA distribution by evaluating important gas-particle (GP) parameters that influence the pulverized coal (PC) combustion performance. The GP flow experiment is conducted in a laboratory furnace model of a coal-fired boiler with different OFA distributions. The experimental results show that as R IO (Two-level OFA distribution ratio) changes from 0:1 to 1:0, the mixture of the OFA jet and airflow in the main combustion zone is advanced, which is conducive to PC burnout. Meanwhile, the size of the central recirculation zone decreases, resulting in poor PC ignition. It is worth noting that at R IO of 1:0, the central recirculation zone disappears at section y/d = 2.5, indicating that there is no high-temperature flue gas downstream to heat the fresh PC particles, which is extremely unfavorable for the stable combustion of the PC. In addition, at R IO of 0:1, compared to other cases, there are more particles in the central recirculation zone, which promotes the reduction reaction of N element released from PC particles, thus reducing NO x emission. According to the comprehensive evaluation, it is recommended that the R IO of the two-level OFA be set to 1:1 when using radial air staging in a coal-fired boiler. The results provide new insights into the application of the air staging method for efficient and clean PC utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of the paper was to determine the factor of mercury emission into the atmosphere by households in Poland. Research for a home coal-fired boiler typical of Polish conditions was carried out, which was conducted throughout the heating season. On the basis of assessment of the quantity of coal burned and mercury content contained therein, as well as of the mercury content in bottom ash, chimney soot, boiler deposits and their quantities, annual mercury emissions and its factor of emission into the atmosphere were defined. It was defined that the mercury emission factor for the investigated case of a single-family house is at a level of 0.56 μg/MJ. It was shown that 41.4% of the mercury contained in coal burned in a home heating boiler is emitted into the atmosphere, 57.0% is adsorbed by chimney soot, 0.3% by boiler heater deposits and 1.3% passes into bottom ash. Annual mercury emissions into the atmosphere from the single-family house concerned was 79 mg. Mercury emissions can be significantly reduced by households by separating any overgrowths with pyrite from coal. The solution proposed would enable a reduction in annual mercury emissions into the atmosphere in Poland from the domestic user sector by 58.5% (0.351 Mg). The factor of emission of mercury into the atmosphere would be 0.23 μg/MJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of renewables, increasing demands for the participation of coal-fired power plants in peak load regulation is expected. Frequent transients result in continuous, wide variations in NO X emission at the furnace exit, which represents a substantial challenge to the operation of SCR systems. A precise NO X emission prediction model under both steady and transient states is critical for solving this issue. In this study, a deep learning algorithm referred to as long short-term memory (LSTM) was introduced to predict the dynamics of NO X emission in a 660 MW tangentially coal-fired boiler. A total of 10000 samples from the real power plant, covering 7 days of operation, were employed to train and test the model. The learning rate, look-back time steps, and number of hidden layer nodes were meticulously optimized. The results indicate that the LSTM model has excellent accuracy and generalizability. The root mean square errors of the training data and test data are only 7.6 mg/Nm3 and 12.2 mg/Nm3, respectively. The mean absolute percentage errors are within 3%. Additionally, a comparative study between the LSTM and the widely used support vector machine (SVM) was conducted, and the result indicates that the LSTM outperforms the SVM. • Dynamic modeling of NOx emission under both steady and transient conditions. • Long short-term memory (LSTM) based NOx emission prediction framework. • Excellent accuracy and generalization ability with the LSTM based model. • Performance comparison between the LSTM and the widely used support vector machine. • Case study based on operation data from a real power plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mercury (Hg) stable isotope is a useful tool to understand the transformation of atmospheric Hg. The observation on the enrichment of heavier isotopes in gaseous elemental Hg (GEM) relative to oxidized HgII species in atmosphere cannot be convincingly explained by isotope fractionation of Hg redox processes. This review shows that the large Hg isotope mass dependent fractionation (MDF) in coal-fired boilers is one of the underlying reasons. The reported Hg isotope data of feed coals and their combustion products are first summarized to give a general overview of how Hg isotopes fractionate before Hg discharge from coal-fired boilers. Then, predictive MDF models are discussed to simulate δ202Hg values of different Hg species in coal combustion flue gases. The discharged GEM is predicted to have the highest δ202Hg followed by gaseous HgII and particulate-bound HgII, which is in consistent with the observed MDF pattern of atmospheric Hg species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Clean Coal Technology is the property of Clean Coal Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Oxy‐fuel combustion in coal‐fired plants has become one of the most promising technologies for carbon capture and storage (CCS). Because of the obvious difference between the oxy‐fuel combustion medium (O2/CO2) and air in the atmosphere (O2/N2), the characteristics of combustion, heat transfer, etc., under oxy‐fuel combustion have changed greatly from those under air combustion. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was used to investigate pulverized coal combustion in a 200 MWe tangentially fired oxy‐fuel combustion boiler. Improved models for the gas radiative properties and chemical reaction mechanisms were incorporated into the CFD code. Both conventional air‐fired and oxy‐fuel combustion were operated. Different flue gas recycling patterns (dry recycling and wet recycling) were also investigated. The temperature distribution in the furnace, the temperature field, and the CO concentration field in each scheme were analyzed, this being relevant to the design of oxy‐fuel combustion boilers. It was found that combustion could form a good tangential circle and stable temperature field in the furnace either under air‐fired or oxy‐fule combustion conditions. The temperature under oxy‐fuel combustion was lower than with air combustion. The burnout rate under the air condition was lower than that with the oxy‐fuel combustion condition. With oxy‐fuel combustion, it is necessary to pay special attention to the slagging tendency of the primary combustion zone in the furnace. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flexibility of the coal-fired boiler depends on the control system, which is designed according to its dynamic characteristics. In this paper, a detailed dynamic model of a supercritical coal-fired boiler is developed in Dymola, and the necessary control models are built. The model is validated against the design values under various conditions with a maximum error of 2.19%. The model is further validated by comparing dynamic simulation results with operating data. Then, the dynamic behavior of the boiler is analyzed under the single- and two-parameter disturbances. When the feedwater temperature, feedwater flow, and coal quantity are all disturbed by −5%, the maximum deviations of the live steam temperature are −21 °C, +32 °C, and −34 °C, respectively. Compared to the simultaneous change of feedwater and fuel, the maximum value of the live steam temperature is reduced by 21.56 °C when the coal quantity is changed 100 s before the feedwater flow. Besides, a first-order inertia compensation element is developed ahead of the feedwater flow command, which effectively improves the performance of the water-fuel ratio control. As the load-variation rate increases, the deviation in the transient process of the thermodynamic parameters increases, and the time required for stabilization lengthens. • A detailed dynamic model of a supercritical coal-fired boiler is developed. • The model is validated for dynamic performance using measured plant data. • The response time and maximum deviation of main parameters are evaluated. • Adding a first-order inertia element before feedwater improves water-fuel control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In consideration of increasing the tertiary air damper opening of a 600 MWe down-fired boiler with prior multiple-injection multiple-staging technology facilitated the coal burnout, while largely increasing the NO x emissions. Additionally, the flame kernel was greatly moved downwards, thus causing significant temperature variations in the hopper near-wall region and the water wall in the lower furnace was vulnerable to overheating. This work concentrated on the comprehensively improved multiple-injection multiple-staging technology, both 1:20 scale cold aerodynamic tests and industrial experiments were conducted to examine the effects of tertiary air damper opening on flow, combustion, NO x emissions and especially the hopper near-wall temperatures. The aerodynamic tests indicated that, on increasing the tertiary air damper opening from 40 to 70%, all the flow fields exhibit good symmetry. The tertiary air flows downwards along the hopper near-wall region, with a maximum near-wall dimensionless vertical velocity significantly increasing from 0.48 to 0.66, and accordingly, the dimensionless depth of downward airflow increases from 0.744 to 0.846. The industrial experimental results showed that, upon introducing more tertiary air, the ignition distance of fuel-rich coal/air flow shortens from 1.25 to 0.87 m. The coal burnout is enhanced, carbon in fly ash drops from 6.90 to 6.15%, while the NO x emissions slightly increase from 593 to 641 mg/m 3 at 6% O 2 . On reducing the measuring height of hopper near-wall temperature from 9.1 to 3.3 m, the average heating rate increases from 0.44 to 0.63 °C/mm. The increased tertiary air damper opening presents an increasingly obvious cooling effect on the hopper near-wall region, with the temperature reductions around 50 °C, which is conductive to protect the water wall in the lower furnace from overheating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]