ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF POWER GENERATION

IMPACTS AND MITIGATION

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INTRODUCTION

 Fossil-fuelled powerplants are one of the main sources of pollution

 The notable pollutants are, among others –
 Oxides of sulphur
 Oxides of nitrogen
 Oxides of carbon
 Particulate matters
 Thermal

 The average residence times of these pollutants in the atmosphere is very large

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OXIDES OF SULPHUR

 The main pollutant from powerplants is SO2 , especially from coal-fired TPPs
and diesel powerplants
 However, other pollutants like H2S and various sulphates may also occur
 Low concentration below 0.6 ppm has no or little health effects on human beings,
but high concentration in the order of 10 ppm may cause breathing problems and
mucus removal
 It becomes more serious when it gets mixed up with PM and enters the digestive system

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OXIDES OF SULPHUR

 Acid rain is an environmental hazard associated with the presence of SOx in the
atmosphere
 The pH level can be as low as 2.4
 When SOx comes in contact with water particles in the air it forms aerosol like acids
 Effects of these acids are many – on structures, water bodies, soils
 Dry deposition occurs when sulphates fall on tree leaves before mixing with water
 When mixed with water, it forms concentrated sulphuric acid
 It accounts for about the half of the total acid fallout

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METHODS OF SULPHUR REMOVAL

 Flue-Gas Desulpharisation (FGD) systems are often used now-a-days in coal-

fired TPPs
 FGD can be wet type (wet scrubbing) or dry type (alkali scrubbing)

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WET-TYPE FGD SYSTEM
 Flue gas is scrubbed with a slurry that contains lime and limestone as well as
the salts of calcium sulphite and hydrated calcium sulphate (gypsum)
 SO2 reacts with the slurry to form additional sulphite and sulphate salts

Wet FGD system

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WET-TYPE FGD SYSTEM
 The merits of this type of system are
 High SO2 removal efficiency
 High reliability
 Low flue-gas energy requirements
 May also remove residual particulates

 The demerits are

 Build-up of scale in the spray tower and possibility of plugging
 A larger gas pressure drop necessitates higher fan power requirement
 Higher capital and operating costs than the dry-type FGD

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DRY-TYPE FGD SYSTEM
 Uses an aqueous slurry of lime, thus capturing SO2 by forming calcium
sulphites and sulphates in spray absorber
 The slurry is atomised by a centrifugal atomiser

Dry FGD system

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DRY-TYPE FGD SYSTEM

 Advantages are
 This system has a dry powdery waste, hence less costly disposal system
 Simplicity of the system

 Disadvantages are
 Efficiency of SO2 removal is lower than the wet-type
 Need for careful design of the spray absorber and the slaker
 Some problems associated with the filter-bag performance
 It is required to operate the system as close as is safe to the saturation temperature
corresponding to the partial pressure of water vapour in the gas

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OTHER METHODS OF REMOVAL OF SULPHUR OXIDES

 One method is the single alkali scrubbing

 Sodium sulphite or hydroxide, or ammonia are used to absorb
 The product ammonium sulphate is used as fertiliser
 This process produces some fumes

 The other method, the Claus process, captures SO2 to produce sulphuric acid
or elemental sulphur

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NITROGEN OXIDES

 Oxides of nitrogen, mainly NO, are produced when fossil fuels are burnt at a
high temperature
 NO oxidises to NO2 by sunlight (photochemical process)
 NO2 has a detrimental health effect
 NO2 is responsible for photochemical smog

 In acid rains, the contribution of SOx is about 60%, while that for NOx is about
35%

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NITROGEN OXIDE REMOVAL

 NOx removal technologies are not as simple as FGD because of its low
absorptivity
 Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR)
technologies have been proved good for NOx reduction
 SCR technology uses ammonia to reduce NOx
 SNCR technology uses ammonia or urea without any catalyst, thereby demanding
higher reaction temperature

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PARTICULATE MATTERS

 Particulate matters (PM) is composed of smoke, dust, and other solids made
of a wide variety of organics and metals
 PM occurs in the atmosphere for both man-made and natural causes
 Their effects are many and varied
 Decreasing visibility
 Increasing soiling and corrosion

 These are classified into PM10 and PM2.5

 The latter one can go into the lungs as well as causes many pulmonary diseases

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PARTICULATE MATTERS
 PM, especially in urban areas, causes serious health hazard due to the fact that
they bond easily with other organic materials in the atmosphere
 If the air-circulation pattern is not good enough, PM creates a self-contained dust dome

Self-contained dust dome

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REMOVAL OF PM

 Particulate matters coming out of power plants may be removed by either of

the following two methods
 Electrostatic precipitator (ESP)
 Fabric filters

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REMOVAL OF PM

 ESP is a more desirable method of getting rid of PM

 They have two sets of electrodes – rows of electrically grounded vertical parallel
plates (collection electrodes) and the second set is wires (discharge electrodes)
located centrally between each pair of parallel plates
 Wires carry a unidirectional, negatively charged, high voltage (between 20 and 100 kV,
but typically 40 to 50 kV) supplied from an external source
 The corona around the wire accelerate the production of additional electrons and positive gas
ions
 PM collection occurs in four basic operations – charging, collecting, discharging and rapping

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REMOVAL OF PM

 The particles are collected on the grounded

plates
 Electrical resistivity of the particles causes partial
discharging
 The particles thus collected is removed by
shaking, known as rapping
 It is easier to collect larger particles
 The efficiency of collection is expressed by two
expressions – one for overall collection
efficiency and the other is the fractional
collection efficiency or grade efficiency

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REMOVAL OF PM

 Use of fabric filters is another method of collecting PM

 A fabric filter element, made in the form of a long, hollow cylindrical tube provides a large
surface per unit of gas volumetric flow rate, the inverse of which is called the air-to-cloth,
or filtering, ratio
 The filters are arranged in parallel rows
 The diameter ranges between 5 and 14 in and the height is up to 40 ft
 They have open bottom and closed top

 Filters are occasionally cleaned by reverse-air method

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THERMAL POLLUTION

 TPPs discharge a significant amount of heat into the atmosphere

 TPPs can employ an once-through system or a closed system
 In the once-through system, water is pumped from a large volume of water, such
as, rivers and lakes into the condenser and later pumped back to the source
 Most of the TPPs in use this system

 Closed system, on the other hand, use make-up water only

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GREENHOUSE GASES

 Major greenhouse gas (GHG) that is emitted from all types of thermal power
plants is CO2
 In one estimate, the current CO2 concentration would increase 5- to 10-fold
 Long before it happens, the mean global temperature would increase to such a level that
the polar ice-cap would melt, thermal expansion of sea-level, extreme weather
conditions may also be experienced

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