High Sulfur Coal Particulate Choices are Many but Requirements Unclear was the Hot Topic Hour on July 10^th Morning

There are many advances which will help utilities meet the requirements to capture the fine particles released while burning high sulfur coal. The problem is that the requirements are unclear and it may be several years before there is clarity.

In the morning Hot Topic Hour yesterday two options for improved particle capture were discussed. Art Nelson of Toray Fluorofibers talked about Tefaire^® X which is a proprietary blend of PPS, Teflon and glass. This material has up to four times lower emissions in PM_2.5 tests. It provides greater resistance to sparks and embers. This feature could be important where activated carbon is injected for mercury capture. Teflon fibers offer protection up to 260^oC continuous use. New developments which are improving filtration performance include microfibers, modified cross sections and more thermally stable fibers for better dimensional stability in use.

Mike Beltran of Beltran provided lessons learned with 1000 installations of wet precipitators including units on oil- and coal-fired boilers. Ten WESPs are operating on a coal-fired boiler in Calcutta, India. The inlet is 1500 mg/m³ and the outlet is less than 10 mg/m³. Beltran has furnished a number of scrubber/WESP combinations where the WESP is located on top of the scrubber. It was agreed that this combination could be of particular interest to utilities operating small coal-fired power plants in the U.S.