An Experimental Approach to Evaluate the Desulfurization Yield in Spray Drying Sorber

Abstract

A pilot-scale Spray Drying Sorber (SDS) system was set up to evaluate the effect of spray characteristics on the desulfurization yield. The size distribution and the Sauter Mean Diameters of slurry droplets were measured in advance using the optical size measurement system, Malvern 2600. The desulfurization yield of the drying chamber by size was measured for the conditions of inlet gas and spray injection. As a reagent, 10% limestone slurry of was treated with flue gas containing , and the combustion gas analyzer and gas detectors were attached to measure the concentration. With a flow rate of 144 Nm3/h and a temperature range of , the experiments were performed for the Stoichiometric Ratio (SR) of 1.0 to 3.0 and droplet mean diameter of 6.5 to . In case of smaller spray droplets, the desulfurization efficiency improved due to the increase of total droplet surface area, while the reduction in evaporation time reduced the contact time between the droplets and gas. In some typical region of droplet diameter, this negative effect, reduction of contact time, became dominant and the desulfurization yield decreases the desulfurization yield in spite of the expansion in absorption area. These results revealed that there exists the optimal size of spray droplets for a given state, which is determined by the compromise between the total surface area of slurry droplets and the evaporation time of droplets. The measurements also indicated that the inlet temperature of flue gas changes the optimal injection condition by varying the driving force for evaporation. The results confirm that the effect of the evaporation time of slurry droplets should be considered in analyzing the desulfurization yield as well as the total surface area, for it is a significant aspect of the correlation with the capabilities of absorption in wet droplets. In conclusion, the optimal condition of spray can be determined based on these results, which might be applied to design or scale-up of SDS system.