ADVANCED FLUE GAS CONDITIONING AS A RETROFIT UPGRADE TO ENHANCE PM COLLECTION FROM COAL-FIRED ELECTRIC UTILITY BOILERS

The U.S. Department of Energy and ADA Environmental Solutions has begun a project to develop commercial flue gas conditioning additives. The objective is to develop conditioning agents that can help improve particulate control performance of smaller or under-sized electrostatic precipitators on utility coal-fired boilers. The new chemicals will be used to control both the electrical resistivity and the adhesion or cohesivity of the flyash. There is a need to provide cost-effective and safer alternatives to traditional flue gas conditioning with SO(sub 3) and ammonia. During this reporting quarter, further laboratory-screening tests of additive formulations were completed. For these tests, the electrostatic tensiometer method was used for determination of flyash cohesivity. Resistivity was measured for each screening test with a multi-cell laboratory flyash resistivity furnace constructed for this project. Also during this quarter chemical formulation testing was undertaken to identify stable and compatible resistivity/cohesivity liquid products