COMPLIANCE ADVISOR: DEVELOPMENT OF SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR FUEL SWITCHING/BLENDING TO MEET SO2 REGULATIONS AT COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

THIS PROJECT IS DEVELOPING ADVANCED ANALYTICAL METHODS TO SELECT AND BLEND COALS TO MEET SO2 REGULATIONS, WHILE MINIMIZING ASH DEPOSITION AND POSTCOMBUSTION EMISSIONS CONTROL. THE ANALYTICAL METHODS ARE USED TO DEVELOP A MODEL TO HELP UTILITIES SELECT AND BLEND COALS BY (1) CONSIDERING ADDITIONAL CAPABILITIES OF FLY ASH CAPTURING SO2 AND (2) IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS CAUSED BY MINERAL IMPURITIES SUCH AS FOULING AND SLAGGING. THIS MODEL WILL ENABLE UTILITIES TO RUN POWERPLANTS LESS EXPENSIVELY, AVOID OPERATIONAL DIFFICULTIES AND, AS A RESULT, MINIMIZE THE INCREASE OF CURRENT ENERGY COSTS. PHASE I OF THIS PROJECT FOCUSSES MAINLY ON THE METHODOLOGY, DEVELOPMENT, AND INTEGRATION OF SUBMODELS AND VERIFIES THE MODEL THROUGH LABORATORY SCALE ENVIRONMENTS. PHASE II WOULD REFINE THE SUBMODELS AND ACCUMULATE A DATABASE THROUGH EXTENSIVE AND DETAILED EXPERIMENTS FOLLOWED BY COMPUTER-CONTROLLED SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY ANALYSIS OF COALS AND COAL BLENDS OF VARYING PROPERTIES AND BLENDING RATIOS.