Applications: Combustion.
MTI’s advanced analysis and services are applicable to the following combustion systems:
Pulverized and Cyclone Coal-Fired Boilers
Your Need – Changes in fuel characteristics or boiler operations lead to performance problems within the boiler. Whether due to increased wear of boiler parts and fuel handling equipment or elevated levels of slagging or fouling, the ability to predict such problems is critical to maintaining efficient, cost-effective operation.
MTI’s Solution – By characterizing the fuel with our advanced techniques, we can provide ash behavior predictions for various regions of the boiler. MTI uses a sophisticated method of analysis, computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy, to determine the size and composition of mineral material within the fuel.
Based on more than 15 years of experience and thousands of fuels analyzed, we can provide accurate predictions of ash behavior to help improve boiler performance.
Fuel performance is estimated in terms of slag-flow behavior, abrasion and erosion wear, wall slagging, high-temperature silicate-based convective pass fouling, and low-temperature sulfate-based convective pass fouling.
Bubbling and Circulating Fluidized Bed-Fired Boilers
Your need – Bed agglomeration, ash deposition on heat transfer surfaces, and erosion are of specific concern to fluidized
bed combustion systems and lead to the following challenges:
- Bed fluidization problems
- More frequent bed turnover
- Maintaining bed inventory
- Diminished heat transfer
- Increases in downtime for cleaning and materials replacement
These ash-related problems depend upon the quantity and association of inorganic constituents in the coal, system design, and operating conditions.
MTI’s Solution – MTI will conduct an in-depth analysis of bed materials, agglomerates, deposits, and fuels to identify bonding phases and temperatures that are responsible for bed agglomeration. Bed agglomeration and ash deposition mechanisms are identified through a combination of scanning electron microscopy techniques, including morphological analysis and point count analysis. This information will assist in proper selection of bed material – an important factor in minimizing bed agglomeration. For example, the use of silica sand is particularly challenging with high-sodium lignite coals because of the formation of low melting point sodium silicates.
More about Bed Agglomeration and Ash Deposition.
More about MTI’s SEM Morphological Analysis.