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Lancia Et Al-1999-AIChE Journal
Lancia Et Al-1999-AIChE Journal
Introduction
The wet limestone-gypsum flue-gas desulfurization process A significant amount of work has been done to improve
is the most widely used method to reduce sulfur dioxide the understanding of the nucleation and growth mechanisms
emissions into the atmosphere by combustion of fossil fuels. of CaSO4 ? 2H 2 O crystals, both with a fundamental and an
In this process SO 2 is absorbed by a limestone suspension in operating approach. For what concerns crystal nucleation
a multistage turbulent absorber or a spray tower. Down- kinetics, an important parameter is the time which elapses
stream from the absorber, a hold tank in which air is sparged between the onset of supersaturation and the formation of
is provided: in the tank oxidation of calcium sulfite takes critical nuclei, or embryos Žclusters of loosely aggregated
place, together with the crystallization of a solid byproduct molecules which have the same probability of growing to be-
mostly made of gypsum ŽCaSO4 ? 2H 2 O.. The crystal habit of come crystals or dissolving to disappear into the mother solu-
the gypsum produced is an important aspect of wet limestone tion.. This time, defined as true induction period Ž tU . Žs., pri-
scrubbing, since it significantly affects the byproduct dewater- marily depends on solution supersaturation and temperature.
ing properties, and consequently the economics of the whole However, as pointed out by Sohnel¨ and Mullin Ž1978., tU
process. cannot be experimentally measured, since it is not possible to
detect the formation of critical nuclei; rather, in order to per-
form the measurements, it is necessary to let such nuclei grow
until they reach a detectable size. Consequently, it is possible
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to A. Lancia. to experimentally evaluate only a time referred to simply as
cal, gave results quite similar Ž"10%. and their average value
were brought in contact as the initial time for the experiment
was used.
Ž t s 0.. It can be seen that, at t s 0, it is ItransrIo s1 and
IscarIo s 0, and then, as gypsum crystals start to form, ItransrIo
decreases while IscarIo increases. Both the decrease of Results and Discussion
ItransrIo and the increase of IscarIo have an almost linear de- In Figures 4]6 the smoothed curves of IscarIo and ItransrIo
pendence on time until, at the end of the experiment, such are reported as a function of time for different supersatura-
linearity is lost. In these conditions the suspension is very tion values Ž s . and for three different temperatures ŽT s 25,
dense and ItransrIo becomes close to 0, while IscarIo reaches 50, and 708C..
a plateau due to the onset of multiple scattering, a condition The supersaturation was calculated considering the follow-
in which the measure loses its significance. ing liquid]solid equilibrium between Ca2q and SO42y ions
In order to find the induction period from the data of and solid CaSO4 ? 2H 2 O
IscarIo and ItransrIo reported in Figure 2, two parallel proce-
dures were adopted, one graphical and the other one numeri-
Ca2q qSO42y q2H 2 OsCaSO4 ? 2H 2 O Ž3.
cal. In the graphical procedure, the two curves were first
smoothed by means of a 15-point mobile average. After-
wards, a couple of straight lines was fitted to each curve ŽFig- so that it is
ure 3.: for example, the ItransrIo curve was sketched by a first
horizontal line Ž ItransrIo s1., which is relative to unchanged aCa2q aSO42 y a2w
ss Ž4.
optical properties of the solution and, therefore, to the ab- K ps
sence of a solid phase, and by a second line which refers to
the period of linear decrease with time caused by the precipi-
tation phenomenon. The second line was drawn by position-
ing the best straight line on the signal corresponding to a
change in slope due to the decrease of signal with respect to
the initial value. A similar procedure has been symmetrically
done for the curve of IscarIo ; the first horizontal line is rela-
tive to the absence of solid phase Ž IscarIo s 0., and the sec-
ond straight line was given by an increase of signal with re-
spect to the initial value. For each curve, the intersections of
the two lines gave the induction period value that in particu-
lar, for the data reported in Figure 3, it is t ind s 380 s. In
regard to the numerical method, the value of the induction
period was found by making a logical test, which consists in
the evaluation of the time at which the signal of scattered
light Ž Isca . was higher than 5% of its initial value I0 . ŽCorre-
spondingly, the signal of transmitted light Ž Itrans . was lower
than 5% of its initial value.. A significant change in the signal
initial values corresponds to a modification of the optical Figure 4. Intensities of the scattered ( Isca ) and trans-
properties detected by the laser, such as a solid phase had mitted ( I trans ) light vs. time for supersatur-
formed in solution. The two methods, numerical and graphi- ation values at T = 258C.
K
t ind s Ž6.
sr