PULVERIZER FINENESS

Importance of Fineness

Higher fineness levels always promote more even

distribution of fuel between a pulverizer’s separate
burner lines. Better distribution promotes better
combustion, inherently lower NOx emissions and lower
flyash L.O.I. or carbon content. The graph below
illustrates actual test data on a pulverizer with varied
fineness. Numerous tests were conducted at various
feed rates. As feed rate decreased, fineness
improved. Note that better than ±10% fuel balance is
not achieved until better than 70% passing 200
Mesh is achieved.

When >10% fuel imbalance is observed, burner lines

with higher fuel flows typically have less desirable
fineness. Burner lines that have less fuel typically have
better coal fineness. When this
occurs the adverse effects on combustion are comp
ounded. Burners having more fuel make effective
mixing of combustion air with the coal-air mixture
difficult. The adverse effects are compounded because
burners having more coal will likely be of lower fineness
making it even more difficult to achieve complete
combustion in the burner belt zone.
Importance of Fineness

Poor Coal Fineness often yields poor

distribution as large coal particles & air
mix to form a (2) phase mixture which will
not homogenize.

Good Fineness Creates a homogenous

& balanced mixture which behaves more
like a gas than a (2) phase mixture of air
& fuel