E. Bar-Ziv, Y. Yasur, and B. Chudnovsky
Computational fluid dynamics, reburning, NOx reduction, coal-gas combustion
To date, Israel’s electrical energy has been based solely on imported fuels. However, with the recently discovered natural gas in the Ashqelon shores, Israel can examine the benefits to its energy resources, environment, and economy of blending its domestic natural gas with imported coal. As for using natural gas, the proposal is to burn it in existing IEC coal-fired boilers in order to significantly reduce NOx emission from the reburning mechanism. An important aspect is to provide retrofitting in existing IEC boilers by replacing a fraction of the coal by natural gas. This would allow the purchase of coal with a wide range of parameters, which is less expensive. Hence, mixed gas-coal burning would benefit Israel both economically and environmentally. However, before going forward with experimentation in utility boilers, we have started with numerical simulations (Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD) in order to study the optimal conditions of operation and evaluate the economic as well as environmental benefits. Indeed, extensive simulations have shown that there is a significant reduction of NOx emission, as expected, with the addition of relatively small amounts of natural gas. These results have encouraged us to pursue our research, and we now intend to expand our simulations significantly and carry out experiments in a test facility that will provide us with accurate physicochemical properties of the mixed fuel for more reliable simulations.
Important Links:
Go Back
