(154c) Experimental Study of Coal Topping Process Coupled with a Coal-Fired CFB Boiler

      Coal is the primary energy in China, which provides ~75% of the total energy consumption. However, reserves of petrolium oil and natural gas in China is limited. The amount of imported oil exceeds over 50% of the domestic need in 2010 due to the rapid economic development. Production of liquid fuels from coal is considered as a solution to reduce the dependency on imported crude oil. The coal topping process patented by Institute of Process Engineering(IPE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is an integrated multi-product process aiming to obtain a high yield of light liquid fraction and gasesou products by flash pyrolysis. Heat and electricity can be co-generated simutaneously in the process when it is coupled with a CFB boiler.

      Extensive work on the process has been conducted in a laborotary bench scale facilty by Energy Conversion Group in IPE, CAS. Coals from different locations of China have been tested. Combustion properties of char derived from the coal topping process and effects of pyrolysis temperature and particle size on the yields of gas, char and liquid products were investigated. Based on the bench-scale experimental results, the  process capacity has been scaled up to 2 t/h, which is integrated into a 75t/h CFB boiler in a thermal power plant. A comparison of the experimental results on the bench scale and the pilot-scale facilites has been given.