Development of an Advanced Low-NOx Burner in Support of B&W's Advanced Coal-Fired Low-Emission Boiler System

To address the design issues facing new and replacement coal-fired power plants, Babcock & Wilcox, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been developing an advanced generating plant design in DOE's Combustion 2000 program entitled, "Engineering Development of Advanced Coal-Fired Low Emission Boiler System" (LEBS). The project objective is to design a new boiler equipped with improved combustion and heat transfer subsystems and advanced environmental control technologies capable of achieving emissions of SOx, NOx, and particulates far below current New Source Performance Standards (NSPS). The goal of the NOx Subsystem is to achieve continuous operation of the Low-Emissions Boiler System at NOx emissions below 0.10 Ib/MBtu over a range of loads typical of a base-loaded generating plant. This goal places practical constraints that must be considered in the NOx subsystem design. Furthermore, these goals must be met without increases in carbon loss and CO emissions from the levels achieved with current low-NOx combustion systems. In Phase I of the LEBS program, a thorough review and assessment of potential advanced technologies and techniques for the control of emissions was performed by the NOx Subsystem Team. Through engineering analysis, experimental testing, and numerical modeling in Phases I and II, an Advanced Low-NOx Control System is being developed to meet the goals of the Combustion 2000 - LEBS project. The results of these activities are presented in this paper.