Development and testing of a high efficiency advanced coal combustor: Phase III, Industrial boiler retrofit. Quarterly technical progress report No. 14, January 1, 1995--March 31, 1995

The objective of this project is to retrofit the previously developed High Efficiency Advanced Coal Combustor (HEACC) to a standard gas/oil designed industrial boiler to assess the technical and economic viability of displacing premium fuels with microfine coal. This report documents the technical aspects of this project during the fourteenth quarter (January `95 through March `95) of the program. The ABB project team met with cognizant DOE-PETC and Penn State personnel on February 15, 1995 at Penn State to discuss our ideas for a new burner (RSFC-based) to replace the HEACC burner prior to the long term ({approximately}1000 hrs) demonstration phase of this project. The main reasons for the proposed new burner were to improve combustion efficiencies and NO{sub x} reduction. Recent, experience at MIT with 5 million Btu/hr coal firing experiments on RSFC burner have shown remarkable performance. Results indicate that RSFC-based burner has the potential to produce lower NO{sub x} and higher carbon conversion efficiencies than the HEACC burner. M.I.T. developed the RSFC burner and obtained a patent for the concept. A decision was made to go with the new, RSFC-based burner during 1000 hr demonstration. ABB-CE will fund the costs ({approximately}$50K) for design/fabrication of the proposed new burner. Penn State plans to improve coal handling by installation of a gravimetric feeder and redesign/installation of a mass flow bottom on the surge bin