Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Numerical investigation of heat transfer characteristics in utility boilers

of oxy-coal combustion
Yukun Hu a,, Hailong Li b, Jinyue Yan a,b
a
b

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology/Energy Processes, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Mlardalen University, School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, SE-721 23 Vsters, Sweden

h i g h l i g h t s
 Air-coal and oxy-coal combustion in an industrial scale PF boiler were simulated in ANSYS FLUENT.
 The O2 concentration of 33 vol% in the oxy-coal combustion case matches the air-coal combustion case most closely.
 The moisture in the ue gas has little impact on ame temperature, but positive impact on surface incident radiation.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 20 October 2013
Received in revised form 28 February 2014
Accepted 20 March 2014
Available online 24 April 2014
Keywords:
Oxy-coal combustion
Boiler
Radiation
Heat transfer
Wet recycle

a b s t r a c t
Oxy-coal combustion has different ue gas composition from the conventional air-coal combustion. The
different composition further results in different properties, such as the absorption coefcient, emissivity,
and density, which can directly affect the heat transfer in both radiation and convection zones of utility
boilers. This paper numerically studied a utility boiler of oxy-coal combustion and compares with air-coal
combustion in terms of ame prole and heat transferred through boiler side walls in order to understand the effects of different operating conditions on oxy-coal boiler retrotting and design. Based on
the results, it was found that around 33 vol% of effective O2 concentration ([O2]effective) the highest ame
temperature and total heat transferred through boiler side walls in the oxy-coal combustion case match
to those in the air-coal combustion case most; therefore, the 33 vol% of [O2]effective could result in the minimal change for the oxy-coal combustion retrotting of the existing boiler. In addition, the increase of the
moisture content in the ue gas has little impact on the ame temperature, but results in a higher surface
incident radiation on boiler side walls. The area of heat exchangers in the boiler was also investigated
regarding retrotting. If boiler operates under a higher [O2]effective, to rebalance the load of each heat
exchanger in the boiler, the feed water temperature after economizer can be reduced or part of superheating surfaces can be moved into the radiation zone to replace part of the evaporators.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Carbon dioxide (CO2) has been considered as one of the most
important greenhouse gases. A substantial part of the emission
comes from fossil fuel based power generation systems [1]. As coal
has much higher carbon intensity than oil or natural gas, large
scale pulverized coal power plants may have the highest potential
for the application of CO2 capture technologies.
Oxy-fuel combustion is a leading attractive CO2 capture
technology, which has the potential to retrot conventional coal
red steam power plants. Many efforts have been concentrated
Corresponding author. Current address: University of South Wales, Llantwit
Road, Pontypridd CF37 1DL, United Kingdom. Tel.: +44 1443 483445.
E-mail address: yukun.hu@southwales.ac.uk (Y. Hu).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.03.038
0306-2619/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

to improve this technology, such as Li et al. [2,3] studied the impurities and ue gas purication in oxy-fuel combustion process; Hu
et al. [4,5] investigated the characterization of ue gas in oxy-coal
combustion processes; Stadler et al. [6] researched oxy-coal
combustion by efcient integration of oxygen transport membranes; lvarez et al. [7,8] numerically inspected oxy-coal combustion in an entrained ow reactor. However, currently the oxy-fuel
combustion technology has been only investigated experimentally
in lab scale and pilot scale combustion units, for example the
0.5 MW combustion test facility [9] and Schwarze Pumpe 30 MW
pilot plant [10]. Modeling of combustion processes by computational uid dynamics (CFD) has become state-of-the-art for
conventional air combustion [11]. Nevertheless, the application
of CFD modeling for oxy-fuel combustion needs adaptation
since the radiative heat transfer is altered due to the different

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Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

Nomenclature
Ar, s1 or kg/m2 s Pa pre-exponential factor
D0, m2/s diffusion rate coefcient
Er, J/kmol activation energy
V0, kg/m3 theoretical air/oxidant amount
Vdomain, m3 volume of uid domain
a,
stoichiometric coefcients of volatile
b,
stoichiometric coefcients of char

Abbreviation
CFD
computational uid dynamics
EDM
eddy dissipation model
FGR
ue gas recycle
RANS
Reynolds-Averaged NavierStokes equations
RTE
radiative transfer equation
UDF
user-dened-function
WSGG
weighted sum of gray gases

Symmetry Plane

Symbols
Adomain, m2 area of uid domain

E
C

F
A-INFERIOR ECONOMISER
B-SUPERIOR ECONOMISER
C-PRIMARY SUPERHEATER

BURNERS 1143015000

E-FINAL SUPERHEATER
F-REHEATER

FURNACE

2600
11000

7000

35000

11000

Over-fire ports

D-INTERMEDIARY
SUPERHEATER

2600

47000

Z
Y

Burners

3600

DIMENSIONS IN
mm

32600

3600

Boundary air ports

15000

Fig. 1. Geometry of the utility boiler [18].

combustion gas atmosphere [1214]. In addition, knowledge gaps

still exist in the integration of oxy-fuel combustion technology in
the large-scale power systems [15]. Therefore, the current research
efforts are also focused on how to apply oxy-fuel combustion technology in a full boiler [16].
Our previous work [17] numerically studied a combustion test
facility, which capacity of 0.5 MW. The models of coal devolatilization, volatile combustion, char burnout, and radiation absorption
coefcient etc. were built in FLUENT with the consideration of
oxy-coal combustion conditions. The CFD model has been
validated by the experiment on the combustion test facility [9].
The numerical simulation results showed that the effective oxygen
(O2) concentration1 ([O2]effective) of ca. 30 vol% in the oxy-coal
combustion, which corresponds to the ue gas recycle ratio of ca.
71%, results in the most similar ame temperature and radiation
heat transfer to the air-coal combustion. However, it still remains
uncertain whether it is the same result for a large scale boiler, since
the emissivity of radiating gases is a function of the domain-based
beam length (or geometry dimensions) of combustion units. Therefore, this work was conducted in order to investigate the ame
prole and the heat transferred through walls in both large scale

air-coal combustion boiler and large scale oxy-coal combustion boiler. In particular, considering the possible change of the heat loads of
economizer, evaporator, and superheater when retrotting an oxycoal boiler, the effects of different operating conditions, e.g. higher
[O2]effective and wet recycle option (see details below) on oxy-coal
boiler retrotting were further analyzed and discussed based on
the results calculated from the numerical simulations. The ndings
of this work will provide guideline of operation conditions to design
oxy-coal combustion boilers, like oxygen concentration and ue gas
recycle options.
2. Description of the utility boiler
Numerical simulations of pulverized coal combustion were performed regarding a front wall red boiler with an installed capacity
of 300 MW [18]. The utility boiler is 47 m high, 15 m wide, 11.43 m
deep. Twenty burners are arranged in a 4  5 matrix (four burners
disposed in each level). The detail dimensions are shown in Fig. 1
and the wall boundary conditions are listed in Table 1.
3. Modeling approach

1
The effective O2 concentration is dened as the average O2 concentration in the
primary and secondary air streams.

The commercial software, ANSYS FLUENT 13.0 [19], was used to

build the model to simulate combustion, uid and particle ow, as

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Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

3.2. Geometry discretization

Table 1
The specications of wall boundary condition [18].
Wall

Side
wall

Furnace
bottom

Furnace
exit

Furnace
hopper

Superheater

Emissivity,
Temperature, K

0.6
620

1
350

1
1000

1
350

0.6
620

well as heat and mass transfer inside the utility boiler. When the
coal particles travel through the boiler, drying, devolatilization,
volatile combustion, and char burnout occur in series according
to specic models. The radiative transfer equation (RTE) was
solved by using the discrete ordinate model [20]. The weightedsum-of-gray-gas (WSGG) model [21] was used in FLUENT via a
user-dened-function (UDF) to calculate absorption coefcient.
The discrete phase (coal particles) was modeled by using the
EulerianLagrangian approach with pressure-based solver to this
three-dimensional problem. The SIMPLE algorithm was used for
velocitypressure coupling, and the realizable ke turbulence
model was considered for Reynolds-Averaged NavierStokes
(RANS) equations. The boundary condition of constant wall temperature was applied for all walls of the boiler.

The mesh system of uid domain was built according to the

detail dimensions, which consisted of 800,000 hexahedral cells
taking into account the accuracy and computing time. The mesh
was rened at the location of the burners, where the ignition and
most of the combustion reactions occurs, as shown in Fig. 2.
3.3. Assumptions and input data
Currently, the oxy-coal combustion mainly refers to the O2/CO2
recycle combustion. The recycled CO2-rich ue gas replaces N2 in
the combustion. Therefore how to recycle the ue gas will directly
affect the thermal performance of the boiler. In order to remove

3.1. Key numerical models

3.1.1. Coal devolatilization model
The competing reaction model that incorporates the inuence
of the heating rate was applied to predict the volatile yield in devolatilization. It assumes that two reactions proceed simultaneously
and compete for hydrogen molecules. One reaction dominates at
low temperatures and the other at high temperatures [22]. The
detailed kinetic data for the coal devolatilization in the simulation
are given in Table 2.

Coals ! aI VolatileI g bI CharI s . . .

Coals ! aII Volatile2 g bII CharII s . . .

I
II

3.1.2. Volatile combustion model (volumetric reactions)

Two-step reaction mechanism (reactions III and IV) governed by
eddy dissipation model (EDM) was considered in this study, which
has an acceptable accuracy in the prediction of CO2 and H2O concentrations compared with four-step reaction mechanism, but
lower time-intense in the calculation [24].

Fig. 2. Grid used for the simulation.

Volatile 1:436O2 ! 1:313CO 2:036H2 O 0:067N2 0:0096SO2

III
CO 0:5O2 ! CO2

IV

3.1.3. Char burnout model (surface reactions)

The kinetics/diffusion-limited combustion model was used to
describe the heterogeneous reactions on char surface. Both diffusion and intrinsic kinetics were considered in this model, in which
the surface reaction rate is determined either by kinetics or by a
diffusion rate. The related kinetic data for char burnout in the simulation are diffusion rate coefcient (D0, 5  1012 m2/s), pre-exponential factor (Ar, 0.0059 kg/m2 s Pa), and activation energy (Er,
6.248  107 J/kmol) [25].
Table 2
Reaction kinetic data of coal devolatilization [23].
Reaction

ai

Ar,i, (s1)

Er,i, (J/kmol)

I
II

Volatile
1

3.7  105
1.46  1013

7.366  107
2.511  108

Fig. 3. Swirl burners arrangements.

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Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

coal moisture at a relatively low temperature, the recycled ue gas

acting as primary air must be dry. Secondary air does not have this
constrain, and it is more exible. So there are two potential options
for the secondary air. One is dry recycle option, in which the ue
gas is recycled after condensing; the other is wet recycle option,
in which the ue gas is recycled before condensing. However, these
two options would affect the heat transfer inside the radiation
zone due to the change of radiating gas content in the ue gas.
More information about how to calculate the ue gas recycle
rate/ratio can refer to our previous studies [4,5]. In addition, the
platen superheater was not considered as the actual tube geometry
and in the model, it was simplied as a heat sink source with
internal emissivity of 0.6 at temperature of 620 K. Other heat

exchangers, like reheater and economiser, were not considered in

this work.
The actual air/oxidant amount was calculated as the theoretical
air/oxidant amount plus excess air/oxygen in order to control the
exit O2 concentration to be 3.5 vol%. The theoretical air/oxidant
amount was estimated by Eq. (1), which was originally derived
to calculate theoretical air amount in air-coal combustion [26]. In
the air-coal combustion (Case I), the [O2]effective is 21 vol%; and in
the oxy-coal combustion, the [O2]effective is changed from 29 vol%
to 37 vol% according to the specic cases.

V0

1
0:01867C ar 0:05567Har 0:007Sar
O2 effective
 0:007Oar kg=m3

Table 3
Analysis of coal used in the simulation [9].
Value
Proximate (as received)
Volatile matter content, %
Ash content, %
Fixed carbon content, %
Moisture content, %

33.55
11.98
48.27
6.20

Ultimate (as received)

Car, %
Har, %
Oar, %
Nar, %
Sar, %
Gross heating value, MJ/kg

65.91
4.59
8.89
2.09
0.34
27.10

Table 4
Comparison of calculated results and experiment data.

Furnace exit temperature, K

Furnace exit O2 concentration, vol%
Unburned carbon, %
Total heat to walls, MW
Heat to superheaters, MW

Experiment data

Calculated results

1287
3.5
3.8
330
63

1398
3.4
4.5
297
66

(Y=8.9 m) Ref. case

[O2]effective= 21 vol%

Due to the lack of detail geometrical dimensions of input ports,

such as burners, boundary air and over-re air ports, the dimension of each port was estimated based on the ow rate (m3/s)
and velocity (m/s) of the corresponding stream, because each specic stream of boiler has a typical range of velocity and temperature to assure the smooth transportation and stable combustion
of pulverized coal. We referred a utility boiler manual [26], and
assumed the typical velocities and temperatures for these specic
streams. Specically, 30% of the total oxidant transporting pulverized coal enters from the internal annulus of the burner as primary
air at 25 m/s and 453 K; 50% of the total oxidant enters from the
external annulus of the burner as secondary air with a swirl number of 0.6 and at 35 m/s and 623 K, arranged as Fig. 3. In addition,
15% of the total oxidant is supplemented directly through over-re
ports at 50 m/s and 623 K; the remaining oxidant is considered as
boundary air, and enters from boundary ports at 15 m/s and 453 K.
Therefore, one air-coal combustion case (Reference case) and
four oxy-coal combustion cases are included in this study: three
case with dry recycle option and different [O2]effective (Case I:
29 vol%; Case II: 33 vol%; Case III: 37 vol%) and one case with wet
recycle option and 33 vol% of [O2]effective (Case IV).
All cases were simulated based on the same input rate of coal
29.4 kg/s as [18]. The properties of the coal are listed in Table 3,
which are used to set the turbulence chemistry mechanisms and
the particle injections. The mean diameter of coal particle is

Case I
29 vol%

Case II
33 vol%

Case III
37 vol%

Fig. 4. The predicted temperature contours for air- and oxy-coal combustion conditions.

Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

56.3 lm, and the dispersion of particle size (spread parameter) is

1.4 [17].

3.4. Comparison of calculated results with experiment data

Due to no available experiment data about large scale (more
than 300 MW) oxy-coal boilers currently, the CFD model built in
this study cannot be validated directly. However, the experiment
data for large scale air-coal boilers is available [18]. Table 4 shows
the comparison of calculated results and experiment data in terms
of specic operating parameters. The calculated results are comparable with the experiment data in all operating parameters except
the furnace exit temperature. The difference might be due to the
different coal gross heating value used in the simulation. The coal
gross heating value used in this study is 27.098 MJ/kg. However,
the coal gross heating value was not given in Ref. [18]. As we
known, a large coal-fueled electrical generating plant peaks at
about 46% of efciency [27]. Assuming the reference power plant

547

operates at this efciency, the coal gross heating value is about

22.15 MJ/kg. Therefore, the difference can be considered as acceptable. In view of the above results, the current models and algorithms used for the simulations are acceptable. In addition, as
mentioned before same models of the key components such as coal
devolatilization, volatile combustion, and char burnout; properties
such as the radiation absorption coefcient; procedures have been
validated by the available experiment data from the combustion
test facility, as reported in our previous publication [17]. These
models and algorithms can be further used for the simulation of
oxy-coal combustion in large scale boilers.

4. Results
4.1. Effects of [O2]effective (based on dry recycle)
[O2]effective is an important parameter in oxy-coal combustion. It
affects not only the ue gas recycle ratio and/or mass ow rate [16]

Fig. 5. The predicted surface incident radiation contours for air- and oxy-coal combustion conditions (From left to right: front wall, left wall, rear wall, right wall).

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Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

directly, but also the ame prole inside the boiler and the total
heat transferred through walls.
4.1.1. Flame prole
The predicted temperature contours under air-coal and oxycoal combustion conditions are illustrated in Fig. 4. As expected,
the ame temperature rises with the increase of the [O2]effective of
oxidant. For the highest ame temperature reached in each case,
it is 2200 K in Case II, which matches the reference case most closely. Besides the different values of the highest ame temperature
in the studied case, the ame shape in those cases is also different
from each other slightly. meanwhile, it is worth noting that the
oxy-coal combustion always results in a ame temperature about
400 K higher than the air-coal combustion in the region close to
the burners. This is due to the lower momentum of gasow in
the oxy-coal combustion cases compared with the air-coal combustion case. Since the high production costs of O2, the O2 concentration in the ue has to be limited as lower as possible (3 vol% in
this study). The oxidant amount in each stream is reduced with the
increasing of [O2]effective [refers to Eq. (1)]. Therefore, although each
stream has the same velocity, their momentums are lowered. it is
consistent with our previous study on the 0.5 MW combustion test
facility [17].
In addition, the reduced oxidant amount could further affect the
ignition process and combustion stability. From the heat balance
point of view, the less amount of oxidant, the less heat is required
to heat pulverized coal stream (coal particles + oxidant) to the ignition point and therefore the faster ignition. Coal particles have a
longer residence time for complete combustion. However, too little
amount of oxidant (means that the momentum is too small) is not
conducive to achieve a stable combustion. When the velocity of
oxidant streams is slower than the velocity of ame propagation,
the ame could reversely propagate and cause the damage of
burners.
4.1.2. Surface incident radiation
The predicted surface incident radiation contours for air-coal
and oxy-coal combustions are illustrated in Fig. 5(ad). Similar to
the ame temperature, the surface incident radiation also rises
with the increase of the [O2]effective of oxidant. However, although
the ame prole of Case II matches the reference case most closely,
its surface incident radiation does not match as well as the ame
prole. The surface incident radiation is weaker on the side and
rear walls but stronger on the front wall. This is due to that the
ame penetration is weakened by the decrease of the gasow

Fig. 6. The predicted temperature contours for dry and wet recycle options in oxycoal combustion.

momentum in the oxy-coal combustion case. It further results in

the ame core contracting and moving forward to the burners.
Table 5 lists the calculated heat ux (kW/m2) on the specic
walls, including both radiation and convection heat transfer.
Although the amounts of the total heat transferred through walls
are similar in the reference case and Case II, the two cases have different radiation heat transfer on the specic walls. Compared to
the reference case, 8.6% more heat and 5.4% less heat were transferred through the front and rear walls in case II by the radiation.
Moreover, about 90% of the total heat is transferred by radiation
in the boiler radiation zone, which is consistent with others results
[18]. And this ratio rises with the increase of the [O2]effective as well.
4.2. Comparison of dry and wet ue gas recycle
In order to identify the effect of moisture on ame prole, the
predicted temperature contours for dry and wet recycle options
under the oxy-coal combustion condition were calculated and
illustrated in Fig. 6. It can be seen from the gure that the increase
of moisture content in the oxidant stream has little impact on the
ame temperature. This is mainly due to the small change of the
ue gas heat capacity, because CO2 and H2O account for more than

Table 5
The calculated heat ux on the specic walls.
Reference case
[O2]effective = 21 vol%
Convection heat transfer, MW
Front wall
Left wall
Right wall
Rear wall
Radiation heat transfer, MW
Front wall
Left wall
Right wall
Rear wall
Total heat transfer, MW
Front wall
Left wall
Right wall
Rear wall
Summation, MW

Case I
29 vol%

Case II
33 vol%

Case III
37 vol%

Case IV
33 vol%(wet)

7.46
5.56
5.61
8.06

9.74
6.84
6.73
10.06

9.75
6.48
6.48
9.80

9.81
6.53
6.74
10.30

9.48
6.27
6.30
9.39

63.23
61.43
61.38
84.48

60.59
54.88
54.60
72.64

68.65
60.75
60.28
79.92

76.94
65.79
65.68
86.06

71.70
62.63
62.41
83.35

70.69
66.99
66.99
92.54
297.21

70.33
61.72
61.33
82.70
276.08

78.40
67.23
66.76
89.72
302.11

86.75
72.32
72.42
96.36
327.85

81.18
68.90
68.71
92.74
311.53

Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

549

This can be explained by the fact that the emissivity of H2O is

almost two times of the emissivity of CO2 [29]. It reveals that the
increase of moisture content in the ue gas is an effective way to
improve the radiation heat transfer, whereas the increased moisture content may further lead to the rise of ue gas dew point temperature [30].
Therefore, moisture content in the ue gas has to be considered
and designed especially when applying the wet recycle option to
an oxy-coal boiler.
5. Discussions
5.1. Scale effects on oxy-coal combustion

Fig. 7. The predicted contours of O2 molar concentration for dry and wet recycle
options in oxy-coal combustion.

95% of the ue gas in the two cases, 85 mol% CO2 + 12 mol% H2O in
dry case and 80 mol% CO2 + 17 mol% H2O in wet case, and the difference of heat capacities of CO2 (1.4 kJ/kg K at 2000 K) and H2O are
(2.8 kJ/kg K at 2000 K) not too much [28]. Thus the weighted heat
capacities (1.526 kJ/kg K in dry case and 1.596 kJ/kg K in wet case)
are close. In addition, similar results were found for the predicted
contours of O2 molar concentration. As shown in Fig. 7, the O2 of
the air injected into the furnace was quickly consumed during
the combustion reactions, because the temperature inside the furnace was high enough to oxidize the volatile matter and char of the
coal particles.
However, the wet recycle option results in a higher surface incident radiation on walls, especially on the rear wall as shown in
Fig. 8. As a result, the heat transferred by radiation through walls
increases from 269.60 MW in Case II to 280.09 MW in Case IV,
which further results in the increase of the total transferred heat,
from 302.11 MW in Case II to 311.53 MW in Case IV (see Table 5).

Our previous numerical study on the combustion test facility

[17] showed that [O2]effective of ca. 30 vol% results in the closest
match of the highest ame temperature and radiation heat transfer
between the oxy-coal combustion case and the air-coal combustion case. However, it is 33 vol% in this study. This difference
mainly attributes to the domain-based beam length, which is calculated as 3.6 (Vdomain/Adomain) [21]. The domain-based beam
lengths are about 0.7 m and 9.5 m in the lab-scale boiler and large
scale boiler respectively. The ue gas in the combustion test facility
matches the approximation of optically thin gas more and its selfabsorption of ue gas is much smaller or negligible [31]. However,
self-absorption cannot be neglected in the large scale combustion
unit since more radiant energy is absorbed by the ue gas. Therefore, less ue gas amount, or a higher [O2]effective, is desired to
reduce the self-absorption and match the air-coal combustion case
in this study.
5.2. Load change of heat exchangers
The above sections discussed the ame prole and heat transfer
in the radiation zone of boiler, where mainly the evaporator
(waterwall) locates. However, for a specic boiler, the proportion
of the heat required by preheating, evaporating, and overheating
of recycling water/steam is determined by the steam parameters
[26]. If the transferred heat is changed in one of economizer, evaporator or superheater, it will change the heat transfer in other heat

Fig. 8. The predicted surface incident radiation contours for dry and wet recycle options in oxy-coal combustion (From left to right: front wall, left wall, rear wall, right wall).

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Y. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 130 (2014) 543551

Air preheater
16 MW (2.0 %)

Economizer
271 MW (34.0 %)
Air preheater
83 MW (10.4 %)

Evaporator
297 MW (37.2 %)
Superheater
80 MW (10.0 %)

(Air case)
Fuel input
798 MW (100 %)

Economizer
316 MW (39.6 %)
Evaporator
276 MW (34.6 %)
Superheater
84 MW (10.5 %)

(Oxy-29% case)
Fuel input
798 MW (100 %)

Heat in the exhaust

67 MW (8.4 %)

Heat in the exhaust

106 MW (13.3 %)
Flue gas recycle
223 MW

Economizer
275 MW (34.5 %)
Air preheater
16 MW (2.0 %)

Evaporator
302 MW (37.8 %)
Superheater
81 MW (10.2 %)

(Oxy-33% case)
Fuel input
798 MW (100 %)

Heat in the exhaust

124 MW (15.5 %)

Economizer
230 MW (28.8 %)
Evaporator

Air preheater
16 MW (2.0 %)

328 MW (41.1 %)
Superheater
78 MW (9.8 %)

(Oxy-37% case)
Fuel input
798 MW (100 %)

Heat in the exhaust

146 MW (18.3 %)
Flue gas recycle
223 MW

Flue gas recycle

223 MW

Fig. 9. Sankey diagram from the specic case.

exchangers and further affect the performance of the whole plant.

In order to understand the effect of oxy-coal combustion on the
loads of heat exchangers, we also built a model in ASPEN PLUS
[32] including the combustion reactor, evaporator, superheater,
and economizer to study the energy balance. It was assumed that
steam parameters of the steam cycle are 140 bar and 813 K and
the minimum temperature difference in heat exchangers is 10 K.
Results are illustrated by a Sankey diagram (Fig. 9).
Comparing the reference case with Case II, they have similar
loads of the economizer, evaporator, and superheater as expected.
However, the loads are quite different in the air preheater. This is
due to less ue gas passes through the air preheater in Case II. As
a result, more heat will be contained in the ue gas in Case II from
the view point of energy balance. The air preheater needs to be
redesigned or re-evaluated. Comparing amongst the three oxy-coal
combustion cases (Cases I, II, and III), the loads of the economizer
and evaporator decrease when the [O2]effective increases, while the
load of the superheater behaves in an opposite manner. This can
be ascribed to the enhanced heat transfer in the radiation zone.
Moreover, the operating conditions do not have many effects on
the load of the superheater, because the heat required by overheating is determined by the steam parameters. So the change of the
load between preheater and evaporator will not signicantly affect
the load of superheater.
Based on above discussing, when retrotting the air-coal boiler
to the oxy-coal boiler, the application of 33 vol% of [O2]effective could
result in the minimal change. And the necessary retrot will be
mainly focused on air preheater and heat recovery from the ue
gas. On the other hand, when building a brand new oxy-coal boiler,
in order to rebalance the load of each heat exchanger in the boiler,
the feed water temperature after economizer can be reduced or
part of superheating surfaces can be moved into the radiation zone
to replace part of the evaporators.
6. Conclusions
In this paper, a CFD model was developed for a large-scale combustion boiler, based on the geometry and operating conditions of

a real pulverized coal red boiler of Electricidade de Portugal

(EDP). It was used to simulate both the air-coal combustion and
oxy-coal combustion technologies, focusing on the ame prole
and the radiation heat transfer. Based on the simulation results,
we have the following conclusions:
 The highest ame temperature and total heat transferred
through boiler side walls in the oxy-coal combustion case
around 33 vol% of effective O2 concentration ([O2]effective) mostly
match those in the air-coal combustion case.
 Wet recycle option (the ue gas is recycled to the boiler before
condensing) has little impact on the ame temperature, but
results in a higher surface incident radiation on walls.
 When retrotting the air-coal boiler to the oxy-coal boiler,
33 vol% of [O2]effective could result in the minimal change for
the existing boiler; while when building a brand new oxy-coal
boiler, if boiler operates under a higher [O2]effective, to rebalance
the load of each heat exchanger in the boiler, the feed water
temperature after economizer can be reduced or part of superheating surfaces can be moved into the radiation zone to
replace part of the evaporators.

Acknowledgments
The nancial support by China Scholarship Council (CSC) and
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden are appreciated.
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