Experimental study on the synergetic removal of fine particles by wet flue gas desulfurization tower with a flow pattern control device.

Abstract This work presents an enhancement method to improve the synergetic particles removal performance of Wet Flue Gas Desulfurization (WFGD) by adding a Flow Pattern Control (FPC) device. Experimental investigation was carried out to study the collection efficiency improvement with bubble flow formed in a single FPC unit. The results are compared to the collection efficiency with dispersed flow in an open spraying column. The grade and total collection efficiency are measured by ELPI+ and weighting method, respectively. The bubble flow formed in FPC unit is more efficient in collecting fine particles, especially for the conditions with low superficial gas velocity and liquid-to-gas ratio (L/G). The improvement of the collection efficiency at the superficial gas velocity of 3 m/s and 4 m/s is ~21.5% and ~3.1%, respectively, at [ C ] ≈ 100 mg/m3 and L/G = 10 L/m3. Taking the pressure drops into consideration, the performance index (PI) is introduced to evaluate the particle removal effect of FPC column at different operating conditions. For lower flue gas velocities (underload), the improvement on particles removal effect is more obvious and economic. In addition, the simultaneous removal of SO 2 and fine particles with the FPC device were also discussed. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • New internals were proposed to improve desulfurization and particles removal. • Bubble flow is used for improving the particle collection in WFGD. • The improvement of new internals was more significantly with low load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]