Combustion characterization of beneficiated coal-based fuels. Quarterly report No. 8, January--March 1991

The Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center of the US Department of Energy has contracted with Combustion Engineering, Inc. (CE) to perform a five-year project on ``Combustion Characterization of Beneficiated Coal-Based Fuels.`` The beneficiated coals are produced by other contractors under the DOE Coal Preparation Program. Several contractor-developed advanced coal cleaning processes are run at pilot-scale cleaning facilities to produce 20-ton batches of fuels for shipment to CE`s laboratory in Windsor, Connecticut. CE then processes the products into either a coal-water fuel (CWF) or a dry microfine pulverized coa1 (DMPC) form for combustion testing. The objectives of this project include: (1) the development of an engineering data base which will provide detailed information on the properties of BCFs influencing combustion, ash deposition, ash erosion, particulate collection, and emissions; and (2) the application of this technical data base to predict the performance and economic impacts of firing the BCFs in various commercial boiler designs. During the third quarter of 1991, the following technical progress was made: Calculated the kinetic characteristics of chars from the combustion of spherical oil agglomeration beneficiated products; continued drop tube devolatilization tests of the spherical oil agglomeration beneficiated products; continued analyses of the data and samples from the CE pilot-scale tests of nine fuels; and started writing a summary topical report to include all results on the nine fuels tested.