Investigation of mineral transformations and ash deposition during staged combustion. Quarterly technical progress report, July 1, 1995-- September 30, 1995

Progress during the eighth quarter of a three-year study was made in three task areas: (1) analysis of coals; (3) parametric testing of the target coals, and (4) analysis of samples from the combustion tests. Routines for automated analysis of coal and mineral associations were completed and are now functional on our new ISIS system. Work on data processing which led to the development of a new means of interpreting composition information from the SEM was also completed during the quarter. This work is expected to yield substantial benefits in understanding the ash transformations during combustion. Several additional ash and deposit samples were collected this quarter. Deposition results have been explained qualitatively and samples has been mounted for quantitative analysis. A detailed characterization of mixing and coalescence was performed during the quarter. Results indicate that combustion under stage conditions does not change the chemistry of the final ash produced. Specifically, both iron and potassium distributions in long residence time ashes did not change as a function of combustion conditions. Some differences were observed in the potassium distribution at shorter residence times. There was also a difference in the size distribution of particles formed during staged combustion. The nature and significance of these differences are still under investigation