Processing of the Kansk-Achinsk Brown Coal Into Synthetic Fuel
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Chemistry for Sustainable Development 18 (2010) 239251 239 UDC 662.6:662.7 Processing of the Kansk-Achinsk Brown Coal into Synthetic Fuel B. N. KUZNETSOV1,2, M. L. SHCHIPKO1 and V. I. SHARYPOV1 1Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ul. K. Marksa 42, Krasnoyarsk 660049 (Russia) Å-mail: [email protected] 2Siberian Federal University, Prospekt Svobodny 79, Krasnoyarsk 660041 (Russia) Abstract Results of investigations carried out at the Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Technology in the area of mastering the technologies for obtaining synthetic solid, gaseous and liquid fuel from the brown Kansk- Achinsk coal are generalized. The technologies under development are based on the processes of autothermal pyrolysis and gasification of brown coal in the reactors with the boiling bed of catalytically active slag, and on the processes of thermal dissolution of coal and its mixtures with carbon-containing wastes in the presence of activated iron ore catalysts that provide obtaining liquid fuel and binders for road construction. Key words: brown coal, processes of pyrolysis, gasification, thermal dissolution, iron-containing catalysts, synthetic solid, gaseous and liquid fuel INTRODUCTION nation of brown coal gained development at the Institute of Chemistry and Chemical Tech- Enormous resources of natural organic raw nology (ICCT), SB RAS. The goal of these in- material are concentrated at the Krasnoyarsk vestigations has become to lay the scientific Territory. Unique Kansk-Achinsk basin (KAB), foundations of the technologies intended for in which it is possible to produce up to 1 milliard t obtaining transportable solid fuel (coal char), of coal per year using the cheap open-pit meth- fuel gas and synthesis gas, liquid fuel and small- od, is situated at this territory. The amount of scale products (sorbents, humic substances etc.) transportation of the Kansk-Achinsk coal to the from the coal of the KAB. neighbouring regions and for export is limited by Industrial development of the known tech- the high transportation expenses. It is more rea- nologies of deep processing of coal is restrict- sonable from the economic viewpoint to develop ed by their low productivity in comparison with deep coal processing into the assortment of im- the processes involved in oil processing, and by portant products with the low transportation com- the high investment [3, 4]. ponent in their cost [1]. At present, the Kansk- The possibilities to improve the technological Achinsk coal is used almost exclusively for power and economical parameters of coal processing engineering, though it is a promising raw mate- technologies by rising temperature and pressure, rial for processing into synthetic fuel and chemi- and modifying the instrumentation, are close to cal products due to the physicochemical charac- exhaustion. Because of this, many new devel- teristics and high reactivity of coal. opments in the area of deep processing of coal On the basis of this deposit, the Kansk- are based on the use of efficient catalysts. Some Achinsk Fuel and Energy Complex (KAFEC) examples of the successful use of catalytic pro- started to form 25 years ago, to provide large- cesses in chemical processing of fossil coal and scale production of electric power, synthetic wood raw material were considered in a num- fuel and chemical products from brown coal [2]. ber of reviews published previously [58]. At the same time, efforts aimed at the investi- Selection of catalysts for deep processing of gation of pyrolysis, gasification and hydroge- solid fossil raw material is complicated due to a 240 B. N. KUZNETSOV et al. number of factors connected with the to- raw material, which decreases the role of dif- pochemical nature of chemical transformations, fusion limitations for heat and mass transfer increased deactivation of catalysts by impuri- and causes a substantial increase in the pro- ties present in the raw material, difficulties in cess productivity. An example of the technolo- catalyst regeneration. Some of these problems gies developed in our country may be the can be solved by choosing cheap catalytically achievements of the Energy Institute (ETKh active materials, for example iron-containing and TKKU) and the Institute of Fossil Fuel ores and slag [9, 10]. (thermocoal) [1113]. In the present work we describe the results At the ICCT we developed the foundations of investigations performed during the recent of more economical version of obtaining refined years at the ICCT, SB RAS, and aimed at im- solid fuel autothermal carbonization of brown provement of the processes of obtaining syn- coal in pseudo-fluidized layer of oxidation cata- thetic fuel from the Kansk-Achinsk brown coal. lyst or catalytically active slag. Unlike for con- ventional allothermic pyrolysis technologies, all the stages of thermal treatment are combined OBTAINING REFINED SOLID AND GASEOUS FUEL in the same reaction volume, which substan- FROM BROWN COAL tially decreases metal consumption in the tech- nology and enhances its energy efficiency [14]. Among all the kinds of fossil fuel, coal is Volatile substances evolved from coal are oxi- the most dangerous energy raw material from dized at the catalyst, so this technology excludes the ecological viewpoint because of increased the formation of pyrolysis tar, and the concen- emission of hazardous substances from its com- tration of benzo[a]pyrene in gaseous products is bustion. Reduction of environmental harm from sharply decreased. By varying the technological coal power engineering can be achieved by pass- parameters, it is possible to control the proper- ing to the use of ecologically safe fuel origi- ties of resulting solid products within a broad nating from coal. These kinds of fuel include range. The process was mastered at the pilot refined or pure coal, synthetic gaseous and liq- plant in the ICCT with the productivity up to uid fuel obtained by chemical processing of coal. 200 kg of coal per hour. Emission of hazardous substances from the com- The solid products of autothermal pyrolysis bustion of these synthetic kinds of fuel is much were successfully tested as the refined energy fuel, lower than that from raw coal. additive to mixtures for coking, single-use sorbents Synthetic solid fuel (SSF) is represented by for water purification from oil products [1417]. a wide range of refined (improved) kinds of Other promising directions of the use of dust- fuel including pure coal, coal briquettes, coal like coal char from Kansk-Achinsk coal are in- char, thermocoal, autoclaved coal. SSF with jection into blast furnaces for the purpose of sav- improved characteristics is obtained from brown ing expensive coke, replacement of fuel oil in coal using different methods, depending on the the production of alumina, and obtaining syn- kinds of raw material and the assumed area thesis gas. of SSF application. The described autothermal method of ob- Improvement of the quality of brown coal taining SSF was used in the development of having low combustion heat due to the high different versions of brown coal gasification in content of moisture and oxygen is usually the pseudo-fluidized layer apparatuses. achieved by refining during pyrolysis. Thermal The shortcomings of the majority of indus- treatment of brown coal not only increases the trial gasification technologies are due to the heat of combustion of the resulting coal char necessity of high temperatures, pure oxygen, but also decreases the emission of SO and NO . 2 x increased pressure and high investment. The Coal char is a good domestic fuel and is used as most relevant process is obtaining a mixture a reducing agent in ferroalloy industry and other of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (synthesis areas, as the raw material for gasification. gas) through the interaction of water vapour Promising technologies of processing Kansk- with carbon according to reaction Achinsk coal into SSF are based on using fine ∆ C + H2O = CO + H2 H = 118.5 kJ/mol PROCESSING OF THE KANSK-ACHINSK BROWN COAL INTO SYNTHETIC FUEL 241 Because this reaction is endothermic, it is nec- Experiments were carried out with the set- essary to use technological approaches based on up described in [22]. The reactor for pyrolysis the combustion of a part of fuel and recircu- is a vertical tube made of stainless steel with lation of the solid heat carrier. the inner cross section of 0.048 m2 and the One of the methods to solve this problem is height of 4.2 m. An air distributing grill with to combine the gasifying reactor with another the free area of 3 % is mounted in the lower reactor in which the heat is formed due to the part of the reactor. The major part of the air combustion of a part of the products of ther- is supplied into the reactor under the distrib- mal decomposition of fuel and heating of the uting grill. The gasifying unit has a similar de- solid recirculating heat carrier [1719]. sign, and its height is 1.5 m. In the first reac- The advantages of the technologies under tor, the fluidized layer is composed of the par- development involving steam-driven gasification ticles of open-hearth slag 0.51.5 mm in size. in fluidized bed reactors are substantial: there In the second reactor the fluidized layer is com- is no necessity to use pure oxygen, investment posed of a mixture of relatively small parti- decreases due to the use of cheaper materials cles of open-hearth slag and thermally treated for reactors and communications, the concen- raw material (coal char). Dust-like raw materi- tration of hydrogen in the produced gas in- al (coal, hydrolysis lignin) is supplied in com- creases. Because of this, the attention to the pressed air flow above the distributing grill into investigation of solid fuel gasification using two the lower part of fluidized layer.