Research & Development: Clean Environment Development Facility

Since its commissioning in 1994, B&W's 100 million Btu/hr (30 MW_th) Clean Environment Development Facility in Alliance, Ohio has supported the development of advanced commercial products for existing and new fossil fuel burning power plants.

As one of the largest pilot-scale test facilities in the world, the CEDF has hosted numerous projects aimed at developing new generations of low-NO_x burners and emissions control equipment. The visionary design and construction of the CEDF have provided B&W and its customers a unique advantage to collect reliable performance data at field representative conditions.

Recently, the CEDF made history by being the site of the largest oxy-coal combustion demonstration project for CO₂ capture. Current CEDF capabilities include:

Fuel delivery
Three fuel handling and delivery systems are available for natural gas, fuel oil, and coal:

• Natural gas valve skid, flow meters, and distribution system
• Fuel oil storage tank, pump, heater, flow meters, and atomizing medium supply
• Coal processing equipment includes: Coal crusher, dryer, and storage with fire suppression systems; B&W EL-56 pulverizer equipped with a dynamically staged, variable speed (DSVS^®) classifier; Raw coal and pulverized coal feeders; Direct pulverized coal supply from mill to burner; Indirect pulverized coal feeding from PC storage bin to burner

Furnace and convection pass
A 100 million Btu/hr burner can be installed in the furnace for firing natural gas, fuel oil, or pulverized coal. Testing burners at 100 million Btu/hr minimizes uncertainties associated with scale-up to commercial size. Flue gas recirculation and air staging effects can also be evaluated. For staged combustion, part of the secondary air is directed to overfire air (OFA) ports representing different elevations (residence times) relative to the burner. In the separated OFA arrangement, the upper ports are put in service. To examine the effect of shorter residence times, close-coupled OFA ports are installed in the tunnel section of the furnace. The water-jacketed furnace is refractory lined to replicate the thermal environment and flow characteristics of a typical utility boiler. Water-cooled tubes are spaced across the convective pass duct to closely simulate the tube metal and flue gas time-temperature profile of commercial design.

Oxygen delivery
For O₂ enrichment of air or recycled flue gas during oxy-fuel combustion, liquid oxygen from a 54,000-gallon storage tank is first vaporized in an ambient vaporizer. Gaseous oxygen is then regulated to appropriate pressures and delivered to the test area.

Flue gas desulfurization and particulate capture
Fly ash and particulate matter can be removed by an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) or a multi-chambered baghouse with fabric filters (FF) and pulse-jet cleaning cycle. Sulfur dioxide and other pollutants can be scrubbed by a wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD) unit or a spray dryer absorber (SDA). These emissions control equipment can be arranged to represent an actual power plant configuration.

Facility Instrumentation
Computerized data acquisition provides real-time engineering calculations and graphical presentation of results. Major instrumentation and measurement capabilities include:

Past experience
Below are several notable examples of combustion and emissions control projects:

For more information, please contact us.