Pilot-scale study on flue gas moisture recovery in a coal-fired power plant

Abstract

The exhaust gas from coal-fired power plants installed with desulfurization tower contains a large amount of water vapor, recovering water from flue gas for recycling is of great significance in water saving and sustainable development. In this work, a transport membrane condenser was assembled by using the 1 μm pore-sized ceramic membrane, and experimental research was performed on a coal-fired power plant. The influence of longitudinal tube spacing on the water recovery and total heat transfer coefficient of the membrane condenser under the condition of high cooling water temperature (greater than 30 °C) was analyzed. The results show that for three different longitudinal spacings of 8, 5, and 3 cm, the amount of reclaimed water first decreases slowly by increasing the cooling water temperature. When the temperature reaches about 36 °C, the amount of reclaimed water decreases significantly. Among the three longitudinal spacings, the membrane module with a spacing of 8 cm has the best water recovery performance. The maximum water flux and maximum total heat transfer coefficient can reach 22.23 kg/(m2•h) and 1068.2 W/(m2•K). The findings from the pilot-scale investigation provide important insights for optimizing large scale water and heat recovery systems.