Ash Deposit Formation and Deposit Properties. A Comprehensive Summary of Research Conducted at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility

This report summarizes experimental and theoretical work performed at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility over the past eight years on the fate of inorganic material during coal combustion. This work has been done under four broad categories: coal characterization, fly ash formation, ash deposition, and deposit property development. The objective was to provide sufficient understanding of these four areas to be able to predict coal behavior in current and advanced conversion systems. This work has led to new characterization techniques for fuels that provide, for the first time, systematic and species specific information regarding the inorganic material. The transformations of inorganic material during combustion can be described in terms of the net effects of the transformations of these individual species. Deposit formation mechanisms provide a framework for predicting deposition rates for abroad range of particle sizes. Predictions based on these rates many times are quite accurate although there are important exceptions. A rigorous framework for evaluating deposit has been established. Substantial data have been obtained with which to exercise this framework, but this portion of the work is less mature than is any other. Accurate prediction of deposit properties as functions of fuel properties, boiler design, and boiler operating conditions represents the single most critical area where additional research is needed