Development and Testing of Industrial Scale, Coal Fired Combustion System, Phase 3: Twentieth quarterly technical progress report, October 1-December 31, 1996

In the fourth quarter of calendar year 1996, 15 days of combust boiler tests were performed, including 10 days of tests on a parallel DOE sponsored project on sulfur retention in a slagging combustor. Between tests, modifications and improvements that were indicated by these tests were implemented. This brings the total number of test days to the end of December in the task 5 effort to 57, increased to 65 as of the date of this Report, 1/27/97. This compares with a total of 63 test days needed to complete the task 5 test effort, and it completes the number of tests days required to meet the task 5 project plan. The key project objectives of the areas of combustor performance and environmental performance have been exceeded. With sorbent injection in the combustion gas train, NO{sub x} emissions as low as 0.07 lb/MMBtu and SO{sub 2} emissions as low as 0.2 lb/MMBtu have been measured in tests in this quarter. Work in the next quarter will focus on even greater reductions in environmental emissions. Also tests are planned with coals other than the Eastern U.S. bituminous coals tested in this project. For example, it is planned to tests Indian coals whose ash concentration is in the 40% range