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 the fourth reporting quarter, laboratory-screening tests of more than 20 potential 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 new multi-cell laboratory flyash resistivity furnace constructed for this project. An initial field trial of three additive formulations was also conducted at the City of Ames, Iowa Municipal Power Plant