Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Drying
And
Grinding
Of
Coal
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Different coal types, composition and analyses
2.1. Analyses of solid fuel
2.2. Hard-grove Grindability Index
2.3. Abrasion Index
2.4. Coal Dewatering
3. Necessary Fineness of Coal
4. Drying of Coal
5. Mills for Grinding Coal
5.1. The Tirax Mill
5.2. Vertical Roller Mills
5.3. Ball Mills Compared with Vertical Roller Mills
6. Arrangement of Coal Grinding Plants
6.1. Direct Firing
6.2. Semi-Direct Firing
6.3. Indirect Firing
6.4. Central Coal Grinding Plants
6.5. Inert Coal Grinding Plants
7. Instrumentation and Automation of the Coal Grinding Plant
8. Raw Coal stocking
9. Filters and Coal-dust Hoppers
10. Safety Precautions
10.1. Temperature monitoring
10.2. Gas Analyzing Equipment
10.3. Inertisation System
10.4. Explosion Relief venting
The coal grinding plants constructed since then have normally been
designed with due consideration to the latest regulations regarding
construction, lay-out and operation of coal handling facilities. The
current safety regulations, as well as the introduction of modern fuel
efficient kiln types, have had a great influence on the up to date design
of coal grinding plants, which will be dealt with in the following.
In fig.5 is shown the relation between HGI and mill specific power
consumption for grinding to different sieves on 90μ in a ball mill.
The abrasion can also be expressed as a YGP index (Yancey Geer and
Price). The relation between YGP and AI index is as follows:
YGP=4xAI
In fig. 8 can be seen dewatering curves for different coal types. Based
on the dewatering curve can be selected the most appropriate and
safe mill outlet temperature for the first start-up.
Of importance is also the relation between the 90μ residue and the
200μ residue. The coarse particles will ignite later and may course CO
and temperature increase later in the kiln system.
4. DRYING OF COAL
The moisture content of raw coal of various types may well vary
within wide limits. It is necessary to dry the coal in order to facilitate
procedures during the grinding, transport and possible storing
processes.
The risk of fire and explosions can be limited considerably, if the coal
meal is produced with a certain content of residual water.
The recommended residual water content depends on the content of
hygroscopic moisture in the raw coal. As a guideline can be
recommended to dry 1-2 % away of the hygroscopic water.
The residual moisture for different coal types typically lies in the
following range:
Before the initial start of a coal grinding plant and when shifting from
one type of raw coal to another, a dewatering curve should be made.
This dewatering curve should indicate residual water vs. temperature.
A typical dewatering curve appears in fig.11. Based on the curve can be
selected mill outlet temperature which gives the correct residual
moisture. In this example is found that the set point of the mill outlet
temperature shall be 65°C to obtain a residual moisture of 1.5 %.
It is usually found that the coal mill should be operated with an outlet
temperature of 65° - 75°C and in certain cases, up to approximately
80°C. To avoid condensation in ducts and filters, the temperature after
a coal mill should be 15° - 25°C higher than the dew point.
Relation between dew point after the mill, quantity and temperature
of the drying air, and the moisture content of the raw coal appear from
fig. 13. It should be noted that the dew point is solely dependent on
the temperature of the drying air and is an increasing function of this
temperature. Regarding the dew point, a temperature of the drying air
of 300° - 350°C or lower appears to be appropriate. As an example, the
following figures can be read from the diagram. If the moisture content
in the raw coal is 10% and drying air from a cooler of 300°C is available,
1.2 kg dry air per kg of dry coal will be needed for drying, and the dew
point after the mill will be approximately 52°C. The residual moisture
in the coal meal has not been included in the calculation.
In this lecture is only described the ball mill and the vertical mill, as
these two grinding systems are the most common used.
differential pressure over the mill, the mills of today are arranged with
only one grinding compartment and classifying lining.
The Tirax mill is a fully air swept mill, so all the mill discharge material
is transported to the separator by air. In previously designed mills, the
coarse reject material from the separator was transported back to the
mill through the outlet trunnion to the fine grinding compartment. At
high air velocities, this arrangement is considered to be inconvenient.
In fig. 15 can be seen the recommended ball charge for Tirax coal mill.
Coal grinding takes place between a rotating table and three grinding
rollers. The raw coal is fed to the center of the table and from there it
passes between the rollers and the table. After being ground, it flows
over the edge of the table and enter the racing current of the hot air
coming through the air nozzle ring encircling the grinding table.
The ground coal is carried by the air to the built in static or dynamic
separator. The course particles are, via reject cone, return to the mill
for further grinding while the fine particles exit the mill with the air
through the mill outlet.
For the latest precalciner kiln systems, both ball mills and roller mills
equipped with dynamic separators to improve the combustion process
in the precalciners.
The Atox mill requires larger amounts of air for material transport than
the Tirax mill. Consequently, when the coal is ground in a vertical mill,
larger quantities of air needed to be dedusted than when grinding
takes place in a ball mill.
On the other hand, since the vertical mill requires and allows a higher
air flow than the ball mill, the vertical mill has a higher drying capacity.
For comparison of Tirax mills and vertical mills, the advantages of the
latter could be summarized as follows:
Advantages:
1. Lower energy consumption
2. Higher drying capacity
3. Output capacity can easily be varied within a wide range
corresponding to the fuel consumption of the kilns
4. Fast feed-output response
5. Accept larger feed sizes; up to 80mm
Disadvantages:
1. Larger quantity of air to be dedusted
2. Lass suitable for abrasive coal. Wear parts are expensive and
replacement causes downtime
3. Sensitive to variations in feed rate and feed quality
4. Higher maintenance costs
• Quality of coal
• Supply of hot air for drying
• Type and number of kilns
• Investment cost
• Maintenance cost
• Reliability
6.1Direct firing
Direct firing implies a simple and cheap installation (fig. 17).
Adjustment of fuel to the kiln are adjusting the coal feed rate to the
mill. This arrangement includes neither a filter nor coal meal bin and
Today however, very few coal grinding plants in the cement industry
are arranged for direct firing since this simple system has serious
drawbacks compared to other arrangements:
An example of the calculation for the primary air and the gas amounts
from vertical and ball mills is shown on fig. 18 for direct firing. A
relation between the amount of primary air and the increase in heat
consumption of the kiln is indicated in fig. 19.
Further, the water vapor coming from the mill and entering the kiln,
together with the primary air, has to be heated up to the kiln exhaust
gas temperature. This contribution to the heat consumption of the kiln
appears in fig. 20.
6.2Semi-Direct Firing
Semi-direct firing system only differs from the direct firing installation
by a silo for ground coal install between the precipitating cyclone and
kiln (fig. 21). This silo for coal meal implies that the kiln will be less
dependent on the operation of the mill. The coal meal is extracted
from the silo by one or more feeding apparatuses. The mill vent air
goes to the kiln burner, as was the case for the arrangement for direct
firing.
6.3Indirect Firing
Indirect firing arrangements are today the most common in new
cement plants (fig. 22). A coal silo and a filter for dedusting the mill
vent air are included in the arrangement.
Consequently, by using this arrangement, the primary air for the kiln
burner can be reduced to an amount which is necessary for proper
burning of the coal. The kiln can also be operated with minimum fuel
consumption.
The coal mill systems described so far have been supplied with hot air
for drying from a clinker cooler, a kiln hood or an auxiliary heat
generator.
For temperature control, the hot air is usually mixed with a certain
amount of cold ambient air. The mix of air to mill will, in all cases, have
oxygen content close to 21% as for atmospheric air and the operating
conditions are called non-inert.
Before the mill start, it is necessary to lower the oxygen content after
the filter to less than 10%, which is a start condition for the mill. This is
achieved by drawing a modest flow of inert kiln gas through the coal
grinding system. During this pre-start process, the mill exit
temperature must be kept below the maximum temperature alarm
limit.
• The storage site should be dry, even and clean and with good
drainage.
• Straw, wood, oily rags and other combustible material must be
avoided in the storage area.
• The coal delivered to storage should be spread over the entire
to a thickness of 0.5m and then compacted before new layer
are put on the pile. A practical and effective approach to
sealing a coal pile is a continuous layer of fine coal followed by
a covering of lump coal to prevent loss of the seal through the
action of wind and rain.
• If possible, sized coal should be stored with the fines removed.
In such piles, the relatively small coal surface area develops
only a small amount of heat which can readily dissipate.
• The temperature of the coal pile should be tested periodically.
• If possible, the storage should be covered, for instance with
plastic and/or a thin layer of raw meal.
• The filter
• The coal dust hopper
Air from the mill separator, with coal meal in suspension, must be in a
cyclone before going to an electrostatic precipitator, in order to reduce
the dust concentration to a safe level before the air and residual dust
enters the electrostatic field of the filter.
Coal meal silos should be equally well equipped with safety devices
shown in fig. 28.
In fig. 29 is shown a flow sheet with dedusting in a bag filter and a coal
dust hopper with extraction to kiln burner and calciner. It can be
noticed that the filter is equipped with sealing off valves, and that the
coal dust from the filter can be transported out of the system instead
of to the coal dust hopper. This possibility can be used in combination
with fire fighting in the filter.
10.1Temperature monitoring
As well mill filter as coal dust hoppers are equipped with processes
temperature monitoring, which is a part of the electrical safety
interlocking. It is very important that this equipment and the electrical
interlocking always is functional.
10.3Inertisation system
In case of fire in filter or coal dust hopper is used CO₂ or N₂ injection
for fire fighting.
The CO₂ can be supplied from either a central CO₂ tank or a battery of
CO₂ bottles.
The CO₂ amount for inertisation of a given volume is 2kg of CO₂ per m³
free volume.
Injection with N₂
N₂ can be used in the same way as CO₂ for fire fighting.
The self closing valve is the more expensive solution, but also the best,
as it do not need to be replaced after the explosion, and because it
very fast again closes to the surroundings.
The necessary opening area for explosion venting, and thereby the
amount and size of the relief valves, depend on the type of coal to be
ground in the installation.
General Comments:
Aside from the already mentioned safety precautions, the following
tips should be added to the list regarding safety of coal grinding plants:
Fig.1
Fig.2
Petroleum coke
Petroleum coke is black solid, obtained mainly by cracking and carbonizing residue
feed stocks and from the distillation of heavier petroleum oils. The main commercial
applications of petroleum cokes depend on their properties and they are typically used
as energy sources for solid fuel application such as lime and cement kilns and
sometimes as fuel for boilers and power generation. Some calcined cokes are used in
the manufacturing of electrodes for aluminium and steel electro-melting.
Green coke (delayed coke) has a distinctive hydrocarbon smell. It can contain up to 15%
volatile material, mostly hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs). Calcined coke purity is largely feedstock dependent. Needle coke and regular
coke are calcined cokes of different purities, the needle coke being the purer from
which is used for electrodes production.
Calcined coke, as a consequence of the calcining process, has a virtually zero volatile
content. It is inherently a much dustier material than green coke and depending on its
use it is usual to add a small amount (0.3% wt or less) of high viscosity oil or a very
small amount of surfactant usually in a water solution to act as a dust suppressant.
Fluid coke has spherical grains and contains less volatile material than green coke. The
normal grain size of fluid coke is less than 6 mm. Flexi coke is similar to fluid coke but
contains even less volatile material and has much finer grains and thus is more dusty.
Green coke
Bulk Density 0.70-0.90 kg/dm³
Real Density 1.35-1.45 kg/dm³
Fig.3
CERTIFICATE OF ANALYSIS
! June 1, 1995
ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS
NOTES
Representative sample of Green Delayed Petroleum Coke were obtain in
accordance with ASTM standards during actual loading of M/V CASTILLO
DE ALMANSA on May 26-30,1995.
Fig.7
On this basis, the water content of the coal after drying at t° C can be
calculated for each of the five operations, since the water content is
calculated in percent of the weight after drying at the temperature
concerned:
(Wt-W₁₀₅) x Wt / 100 %
The dewatering curve is drawn by plotting in a co-ordinate system: the
water content, thus found as a function of the rising temperature.
Fig.15
Fig.18
Direct Firing
L min: Antracite coal = 0.00139 kg air/kcal
Fuel = 0.00141 kg air/kcal
Lignite = 0.00143 kg air/kcal
Kiln System
Fig. 31
Classification of coal