DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVATED CARBONS FROM COAL COMBUSTION BY-PRODUCTS

The implementation of increasingly stringent Clean Air Act Regulations by the coal utility industry has resulted in an increase in the concentration of unburned carbon in coal combustion fly ash. In 1999, around 6 million tons of unburned carbon were disposed in the US, due to the present lack of efficient routes for its utilization. However, unburned carbon is a potential precursor for the production of adsorbent carbons, since it has gone through a devolatilization process while in the combustor, and therefore, only requires to be activated. Accordingly, this report evaluates and compares several routes for the production of activated carbons from unburned carbon, including physical activation with steam or CO{sub 2}, and chemical activation using KOH pretreatment. During the present reporting period (June 30, 2000--June 29, 2001), Task 1 ''Procurement and characterization of CCBPs'' was concluded, including samples from pulverized utility boilers, a utility cyclone unit equipped with a beneficiation technology, a suspension-fired research boiler, and a class C fly ash. The characterization studies showed that the samples collected have significantly different carbon contents, as determined by the ASTM C114 procedure, with the sample from the cyclone unit containing the highest carbon content (LOI of {approx} 80%), since this unit has been retrofitted with a technology to separate the unburned carbon from the fly ash. The porosity of the samples assembled was characterized by N{sub 2} adsorption isotherms at 77K. The surface areas of the class F fly ash samples from pulverized coal combustors are between 30-40 m{sup 2}/g, while the samples from the suspension-fired research boiler had surface area around 115 m{sup 2}/g. As expected, the surface areas of the class C ash is much higher than that of the class F ashes, with values up to 390 m{sup 2}/g. In addition, during the current reporting period, also Task 2 ''Development of activated carbons'' and Task 3 ''Characterization of activated carbons'' were continued