Confined Zone Dispersion Project: A DOE assessment

The goal of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Clean Coal Technology (CCT) program is to furnish the energy marketplace with a number of advanced, more efficient, and environmentally responsible coal utilization technologies through demonstration projects. These projects seek to establish the commercial feasibility of the most promising advanced coal technologies that have developed beyond the proof-of-concept (POC) stage. This document serves as a DOE post-project assessment of the Confined Zone Dispersion Project in CCT Round 3. In 1990, Bechtel Corporation entered into a cooperative agreement to conduct the demonstration project. The Seward Power Station of Pennsylvania Electric Company (now GPU Genco) was the host site. DOE funded 43 percent of the total project cost of $12,173,000. The project was started in June 1990 and was scheduled to be completed in June 1993. As a result of various operating problems, the schedule was extended into 1994 without additional cost to DOE. Bechtel provided the additional financing and GPU Genco provided electricity, steam, and water to operate the unit. The independent evaluation contained herein is based primarily on information from Bechtel's final technical report (1994) as well as other references cited. Confined Zone Dispersion (CZD) is a flue gas desulfurization (FGD) process that removes sulfur dioxide (SO{sub 2}). A finely atomized slurry of reactive lime, calcium hydroxide or Ca(OH){sub 2} is injected into the flue-gas duct work, between the air preheater and the second-stage ESP. The lime reacts with the SO{sub 2}, forming dry solid reaction products. The downstream ESP captures the 2 reaction products along with the fly ash entrained in the flue gas. The CZD process was demonstrated on Unit 5, a 147-MWe utility unit with two flue gas ducts. One of the ducts was extended to provide the requisite residence time and retrofitted with the CZD lime injection equipment