Moving granular-bed filter development program. Topical report

Abstract

Advanced, coal-based, power plants, such as IGCC and Advanced-PFBC, are currently nearing commercial demonstration. These power plant technologies require hot gas filtration as part of their gas cleaning trains. Ceramic barrier filters are the major filter candidates being developed for these hot gas cleaning applications. While ceramic barrier filters achieve high levels of particle removal, concerns exist for their reliability and operability in these applications. An alternative hot gas filtration technology is the moving granular bed filter. An advanced, moving granular bed filter has been conceived, and early development activities performed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Science and Technology Center. This document reports on the Base Contract tasks performed to resolve the barrier technical issues for this technology. The concept, the Standleg Moving Granular Bed Filter (SMGBF) has a concurrent downward, gas and bed media flow configuration that results in simplified features and improved scaleup feasibility compared to alternative designs. Two modes of bed media operation were assessed in the program: once-through using pelletized power plant waste as bed media, and recycle of bed media via standleg and pneumatic transport techniques. Cold Model testing; high-temperature, high-pressure testing; and pelletization testing using advanced power plant wastes, have been conducted in themore » program. A commercial, economic assessment of the SMGBF technology was performed for IGCC and Advanced-PFBC applications. The evaluation shows that the barrier technical issues can be resolved, and that the technology is potentially competitive with ceramic barrier filters.« less