COAL FIRED POWER GENERATION & ASSOCIATED EMISSION CONTROL METHODS

A conventional coal-fired power plant produces electricity by the burning of coal and air in a steam generator, where it heats water to produce high pressure and high temperature steam. The steam flows through a series of steam turbines which spin an electrical generator to produce electricity. The exhaust steam from the turbines is cooled, condensed back into water, and returned to the steam generator to start the process over. The efficiency of a conventional coal fired power plant varies between 35%-45%.

Fig 1.

Fig 1.Schematic Figure of a Conventional Coal fired Power Generation Plant. 1. Cooling tower 2. Cooling water pump 3. Three-phase transmission line 4. Step-up transformer 5. Electrical generator 6. Low pressure steam turbines 7. Condensate and feedwater pumps 8. Surface condenser 9. Intermediate pressure steam 10. Steam control valve 11. High pressure steam turbine 12. Deaerator 13. Feedwater heater 14. Coal conveyor 15. Coal hopper 16. Coal pulverizer 17. Boiler steam drum 18. Bottom ash hopper 19. Superheater 20. Fan 21. Reheater 22.Combustion air intake 23. Economiser 24. Air preheater 25. Electrostatic precipitator 26. Fan 27. Flue gas desulfurization 28. Flue gas stack

Coal transport and delivery: Coal is delivered by highway truck, rail, barge or if the power plant is in the vicinity of a coal producing facility such as a mine, then it is delivered to the power production facility by means of conveyer belts. The adjacent schematic Fig
2 illustrates the process.

Fig 2. Fuel preparation: Coal is prepared for use by first crushing the delivered coal into pieces less than 5 cm in size. The crushed coal is then transported from the storage yard to in-plant storage silos by rubberized conveyor belts. Coal from the storage silos is fed into pulverizers that grind the crushed coal into the consistency of face powder and mix it with primary combustion air which transports the pulverized coal to the steam generator furnace. In power plants that do not burn pulverized coal, the coal is directly fed to the burners with specially designed combustors. The powered coal slurry is fed to the pulverizers, mixed with air for combustion and then fed to the combustion chamber[1].A typical coal pulverizer is shown in the adjacent Fig 3.

Fig 3.

Boiler Feedwater Heater : The feedwater used in the steam generator consists of recirculated condensate water and makeup water.The condensate and feedwater system begins with the water condensate being pumped out of the low pressure turbine exhaust steam condenser (commonly referred to as a surface condenser). The feedwater plus makeup water flows through feedwater heaters heated with steam extracted from the steam turbines. Typically, the total feedwater also flows through a deaerator that removes dissolved air from the water, further purifying and reducing its corrosivity[1].A typical heater for a boiler is shown in Fig 4.

Fig 4.

Deaerator : A deaerator is a device that is widely used for the removal of air and other dissolved gases from the feedwater to steam generating boilers. In particular, dissolved oxygen in boiler feedwaters will cause serious corrosion damage in steam systems by attaching to the walls of metal piping and other metallic equipment and forming oxides (rust). It also combines with any dissolved carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid that causes further corrosion[2].A spray type deaerator is show in Fig 5. The combination of a feedwater heater and deaerator is depicted in the Fig 6.

Fig 5.

Fig 6.

Steam Generator : The deaerated boiler feedwater enters the economizer where it is preheated by the hot combustion flue gases and then flows into the boiler steam drum at the top of the furnace. Water from that drum circulates through the boiler tubes in the furnace walls using the density difference between water in the steam drum and the steam-water mixture in the boiler tubes. Pulverized coal is air-blown into the furnace from fuel nozzles at the four corners and it rapidly burns, forming a large fireball at the center. The thermal radiation of the fireball heats the water that circulates through the boiler tubes mounted on the furnace walls. In the boiler steam drum, the steam is separated from the circulating water. The steam then flows through superheat tubes that hang in the hottest part of the combustion flue gases path as it exits the furnace[1]. The entire process is illustrated by the Fig 7.

Fig 7.
Above the critical point for water of 374 C and 22 MPa, there is no phase transition from water to steam, but only a gradual decrease in density. Boiling does not occur and it is not possible to remove impurities via steam separation. Supercritical steam generators operating at or above the critical point of water are referred to as once-through plants because boiler water does not circulate multiple times as in a conventional steam generator. Supercritical steam generators require additional water purification steps to ensure that any impurities picked up during the cycle are removed. This purification takes the form of high pressure ion exchange units called condensate polishers between the steam condenser and the feed water heaters. Super-critical coal fired power plants have higher efficiency than conventional power plants.[1] Steam Turbines and Electrical Generators : The staged series of steam turbines includes a high pressure turbine, an intermediate pressure turbine and two low pressure turbines. A common configuration is that the series of turbines are connected to each other and on a common shaft, with the electrical generator also being on that common shaft. As steam moves through the system, it loses pressure and thermal energy and expands in volume, which requires increasing turbine diameter and longer turbine blades at each succeeding stage. Fig 8.

Superheated steam from the steam generator flows through a control valve into the high pressure turbine. The control valve regulates the steam flow in accordance with the power output needed from the plant. The exhaust steam from the high pressure turbine (reduced in pressure and in temperature) returns to the steam generator's reheating tubes (see the steam generator diagram above) where it is reheated back to 540 C before it flows into the intermediate pressure turbine. The exhaust steam from the intermediate pressure turbine flows directly into the two low pressure turbines and the exhaust steam from the low pressure turbines flows into the surface condenser. A small fraction of steam from the turbines is used to heat the deaerator and/or the boiler feedwater preheater[1].A combination of a steam turbine and an electrical generator is shown in Fig 8. The turbine-driven electrical generator contains a stationary stator and a spinning rotor. The rotor spins in a sealed chamber cooled with hydrogen gas, selected because it has the highest known thermal conductivity of any gas and it has a low viscosity which reduces windage losses from friction between the generator rotor and the cooling gas. The system requires special handling during startup, with air in the chamber first displaced by carbon dioxide before filling with hydrogen. This ensures that a highly explosive hydrogenoxygen environment is not created[1].

Fig 9.

The power grid frequency is 60 Hz across North America. The electricity flows to a distribution yard where three-phase transformers step the voltage up to 115, 230, 500 or 765 kV as needed for transmission to its destination. This is illustrated by the Fig 9.
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Steam Condensation and Cooling towers: The exhaust steam from the low pressure turbines is condensed into water in a water-cooled surface condenser shown in Fig 10. The condensed water is commonly referred to as condensate. The surface condenser operates at an absolute pressure of about 35 to 40 mmHg which maximizes the overall power plant efficiency. The surface condenser is usually a shell and tube heat exchanger. Cooling water circulates through the tubes in the condenser's shell and the low pressure exhaust steam is cooled and condensed by flowing over the tubes. Typically the cooling water causes the steam to condense at a temperature of about 35 C. A lower condensing temperature results in a higher vacuum (i.e., a lower absolute temperature) at the exhaust of the low pressure turbine and a higher overall plant efficiency[3]. The condensate from the bottom of the surface condenser is pumped back to the deaerator to be reused as feedwater. The cooling water used to condense the steam in the condenser returns to its source without having been changed other than having been warmed. If the water returns to a local water body (rather than a circulating cooling tower), it is mixed with cool raw water to lower its temperature and prevent thermal shock to aquatic biota when discharged into that body of water. Another method sometimes utilized for condensing turbine exhaust steam is the use of an air-cooled condenser. Exhaust steam from the low pressure steam turbines flows through the air-cooled condensing tubes which usually have metal fins on their external surface to increase their heat transfer capacity. Ambient air from a large fan is directed over the fins to cool the tubes and condense the low pressure steam in the tubes. Air-cooled condensers typically operate at a higher temperature than water-cooled surface condensers. While reducing the amount of water used in a power plant, the higher condensing temperature results in a higher exhaust pressure for the low pressure turbines which reduces the overall efficiency of the power plant[1].

Fig 10.

Cooling towers are heat rejection systems used primarily to provide circulating cooling water in large industrial facilities. The circulating cooling water absorbs heat by cooling and/or condensing the hot process streams within the industrial facilities. The cooling towers then reject that absorbed heat by transferring it to the atmosphere. In power plants, hyperboloid cooling towers(Fig 11) are normally erected because of their structural strength and minimal usage of materials.[4]

Fig 11.

Flue Gas stack: Flue gases are produced when coal is combusted in the power plant's steam-generating boiler. Flue gas is usually composed of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor as well as nitrogen and excess oxygen remaining from the intake combustion air. It also contains a small percentage of pollutants such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The flue gas stacks are often quite tall to disperse the exhaust pollutants over a greater area and thereby reduce the concentration of the pollutants[5]. A flue gas stack in a power plant is shown in Fig 12. Fig 12.

The gas exiting the steam generator is laden with particulate matter (PM), referred to as fly ash, which consists of very small ash particles. The flue gas contains nitrogen along with combustion products carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The major designated air pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants are sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), and mercury (Hg). Several techniques and processes are implemented in order to get rid of these harmful contents from the flue gas mixture released into the atmosphere which constitute the emission avoidance techniques. The application of a process varies with situation and necessity. The main processes which are employed to avoid NOx emissions are Selective Catalytic Reduction(SCR) & Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction(SNCR). Similarly, SO2 gas in the flue gas mixture is eliminated by Flue Gas Desulfurization(FGD) and structures like Electrostatic Precipitators and Fabric Filters are employed to remove particulate matter from the flue gas mixture.