Influence of Chemical Composition on the Electrical Resistivity of Fly Ash Generated from Indian Coal Based Thermal Power Plants

Abstract

Electrostatic Precipitators (ESP) are control devices widely used for collection of fly ash in Indian coal based thermal power plants. The design, performance, sizing, collection and operation of ESP depend largely on the properties and quality of the coal burned and the fly ash generated in the boilers. This study presents the influence of fly ash composition on the resistivity of Indian fly ash generated from coal based power plants, which is one of the critical parameter required to make accurate predictions of ESP in terms of their collection efficiency. The fly ash electrical resistivity measurements were conducted over a wide range of temperature in both ascending and descending cycles in the range of 90 to 455oC at 9% moisture as per IEEE-Standard 548 (1991). The earlier developed Empirical relations used for calculating fly ash electrical resistivity for western coals were modified for the calculations of electrical resistivity of Indian fly ashes and new empirical relations have been developed based on experimental results and chemical composition of fly ash samples collected from different coal based power plants in India which have different chemical composition in comparison to western coals. Results in the newly developed correlations show better agreements with experimentally determined resistivity compared to those developed by Bickelhaupt and others.