FUTURE OF RECOVERY BOILER TECHNOLOGY

DR. ESA K. VAKKILAINEN, JAAKKO PYRY, VANTAA, FINLAND

Recovery technology has developed from early inefcient chemical recovery to modern large plants. 2004 marks the year when rst year of commercial black liquor gasier operation is completed. Black liquor gasiers pose a challenge to recovery boiler. For pulp mills the signicance of electricity generation from the recovery boiler has been secondary. The most important design criterion for the recovery boiler has been the high availability. The electricity generation in recovery boiler process and steam cycle can be increased by elevated main steam pressure and temperature or by higher black liquor dry solids. This has been done in the modern Scandinavian units. Recovery boiler design trends are outlined to show the direction the recovery boiler technology is going. Changes in investment costs, increases in scale, demands placed on energy efciency and environmental requirements are the main factors directing development of the modern recovery boiler. Some

recent steps have been the use of higher steam parameters and higher black liquor dry solids. The current recovery boiler can be much larger than the previous ones. Boilers with over 200 square meter bottom area are being bought. Largest proposals are for 6000 tds/d boiler. Recovery boiler is now challenging circulating uidized boilers for the title of largest bio-fuel red boiler. The existing mechanical and commercial limits of furnace size for natural circulation units have now been reached. We live in a breakthrough era of recovery. On the other hand recovery boilers are turning into saleable electricity generators for the rst time in history. On the other hand rst commercial black liquor gasiers challenge the recovery boiler. The fate of black liquor gasication is not clear yet. A lot of costly development work needs to be done. Only time will tell whether higher electricity generation can overcome lower efciency and higher installation cost.