In the third quarter of calendar year 1996, 13 days of combust-boiler tests were performed, including 3 days of tests on a parallel DOE sponsored project on sulfur retention in a stagging combustor. Between tests, modifications and improvements that were indicated by these tests were implemented. This brings the total number of test days to the end of September in the task 5 effort to 41, increased to 46 as of the date of this Report, 10/27/96. This compares with a total of 63 test days needed to complete the task 5 test effort. As reported previously, the only major modification to the Williamsport combustor has been the addition of a new downstream section, which lengthens the combustor and improves the combustor-boiler interface. The original combustor section, which includes the fuel, air, and cooling water delivery systems remained basically unchanged. Only the refractory liner was completely replaced, a task which occurs on an annual basis in all commercial stagging utility combustors. Therefore, this combustor has been operated since 1988 without replacement.

In the commercial sector, oil and natural gas are the predominant fuels used to meet space-heating needs of schools, office buildings, apartment complexes, etc. These buildings generally require firing rates of 1 to 10 million Btu/hr. Objective of this program is to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of a coal-fired combustion system for this sector. The commercial-scale coal-water slurry (CWS)-fired space heating system is a scale-up of a CWS-fired residential warm-air heating system developed by Tecogen Inc. This system included a patented nonslagging combustor known as IRIS (Inertial Reactor with Internal Separation). The combustor concept employs centrifugal forces combined with a staged combustion process to achieve high carbon conversion efficiencies and low N oxides generation. Along with the necessary fuel storage and delivery, heat recovery, and control equipment, the system includes pollution control devices to meet targeted values of SO[sub 2] and particulate emissions. In general, the system is designed to match the reliability, safety, turndown, and ignition performance of gas or oil-fired systems. During the 8th quarter of this program, a demonstration plan was developed for installation and operation of the space heating system at an actual installation. Also, equipment upgrades were implemented and laboratory testing performed to evaluate the performance of the system with these changes.

In this quarterly technical progress report, UTSI reports on a multi-task research contract directed toward developing the technology for an MHD steam combined cycle power plant. During the period two tests were conducted in the DOE Coal Fired FLow Facility. Both of these tests were part of the western coal proof-of-concept (POC) test series. The report describes the performance of the tests and provides some preliminary performance data on particulate removal systems during the tests. The performance of ceramic tubes being tested for high temperature air heater application is described. Performance of advanced diagnostics equipment from both UTSI and MSU is summarized. The results of experiments designed to determine the effects of potassium compounds on combustion are included. Plans for analysis of metal tube specimens previously removed from the test train are discussed. Modeling and analysis of previous test data include a deposition model to predict ash deposition on tubes, mass balance results, automated data screening and chemical analyses and the data base containing these analyses. Laboratory tests on sealing ceramic tubes and corrosion analyses of previously tested tubes are reported.