Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Eric Johnson

Abstract

Removing sulfur before combustion is essential to lower the sulfur dioxide produced during combustion. Common separation processes have large obstacles including usage of large quantities of water, the need to dry the coal after separation, and additional environmental hazards created during the separation process. The current exploratory research concentrates on coal particles in the size range of 105< dp<210 microns. A small scale circulating fluidized bed was constructed with the addition of a gas pulsation generator. Various superficial gas velocities, u0, were used in conjunction with various rates of pulsations. The system was able to segregate dirtier coal from cleaner coal with various efficiencies for different flow conditions. The most favorable flow conditions were found to be: 1Hz flow pulsations and a superficial gas velocity of 0.8581ms-1 which reduced the mass percent sulfur of the initial sample of coal from 1.66% to 1.37%.

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