Removal of mercury from powder river basin coal by low-temperature thermal treatment

Abstract

Portions of this document may be illegible in electronic image products. Images are produced from the best available original document. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This report was prepared with the support of the U S. Department of Energy (DOE), Morgantown Energy Technology Center, under Cooperative Agreement Number DE-FC-93MC30126. However, any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DOE.

Thermal desorption of mercury from lignite in a high-temperature furnace and in power plant mills

“…However, a plant concept for thermal pretreatment must always be carried out on the basis of the coal under consideration and cannot be generalized. The study by Merriam (1993) shows very high mercury separation efficiencies up to 70%-80% in hard coal and lignite using a fluidized bed reactor (thermal treatment 150-290 °C). Schwieger et al (2020), on the other hand, were able to achieve as high as 87% reduction in mercury content in the coal sample for thermal treatment at 200 °C of central German lignite in a fixed bed with a slow heating rate in air.…”

Mercury in U.S. coal—Priorities for new U.S. Geological Survey studies

“…Attempts to further reduce mercury contents by conventional means have been largely unsuccessful (for example, Palmer and others, 2000). Reduction of mercury in Powder River Basin coals by thermal pretreatment is more promising (Merriam, 1993;Guffey and Bland, 2004), but this approach is unlikely to be applied on a commercial scale. Characterization of these coals is complicated by their high moisture contents, which can be a source of error if not properly determined (Luppens, 2011), and low halogen contents, which may be below detection by widely used ASTM methods.…”

Quarterly technical progress report - base program on energy related research. Quarterly report, May 1--July 31, 1994

“…Accomplishments: The topical reports describing the test results (Merriam 1993;Merriam and Turner 1993) were approved by DOE in a previous quarter. A poster session presentation, describing the process, was given at the M E W Contractors Quarter Objective: The objective for this quarter was to prepare the topical report of the results of this study.…”