REVERSE SUPERHEATER FOULING IN THE Al-PAC RECOVERY BOILER

Larry Greenwood (formerly with Al-Pac) Trevor Ip (formerly with Al-Pac)

Power and Recovery Manager Process Engineer
Weldwood of Canada Weldwood of Canada
760 Switzer Drive 760 Switzer Drive
Hinton, Alberta, Canada Hinton, Alberta, Canada
T7V 1V7 T7V 1V7

Janice Dhak (formerly with Al-Pac) Gary Kennard

Project Engineer Chief Engineer/Fiberline Business Unit Leader
Visy Pulp and Paper Al-Pac Forest Industries Inc.
436 Gadara Rd. Box 8000
Tumut, New South Wales 2720 Boyle, Alberta, Canada
Australia T0A 0M0

Ibrahim Karidio Mike Towers

Research Engineer Research Engineer
Paprican Paprican
2711 Pulp Mill Road 2711 Pulp Mill Road
Prince George, B.C., Canada Prince George, B.C., Canada
V2N 2K3 V2N 2K3

Vic Uloth Klaus Weiss

Senior Research Engineer Technical Specialist
Paprican Paprican
2711 Pulp Mill Road 3800 Wesbrook Mall
Prince George, B.C. Vancouver, B.C.
V2N 2K3 V6S 2L9

ABSTRACT

Al-Pac Forest Industries Inc. had the largest single drum recovery boiler in the world when it was built in 1993.
Over the four years after the mill startup, the boiler experienced frequent pluggage problems. These earlier problems
were related to insufficient sootblowing, and were resolved by adding 12 sootblowers and modifying the
sootblowing sequence and frequency. The problems that came later were related to chloride buildup as well as
operational issues. While trying to resolve these issues, the mill personnel discovered a relationship between the SO 2
emission rate and the frequency of boiler pluggage. The mill also found that the boiler fouling process could be
reversed by optimizing the liquor chemistry, firing parameters and combustion air system. The recovery boiler
would no longer need to be shut down for a water wash except during the scheduled mill outage. The project
incurred minimal expenditure and the benefit to the mill was estimated to be 2 million dollars per year..

INTRODUCTION

Al-Pac Forest Industries produced both hardwood and softwood fully bleached market pulp. The latter accounted for
10% of the annual production. The design pulp production rate was 1667 admt/day for hardwood and 1,389
admt/day for softwood. The mill started up in September 1993.

Through good planning on the part of the mill management, the mill started up well and it was significantly ahead of
the original startup schedule for production ramp-up to original design capacity. Even with a good startup, a few
areas of concern were noticed. One of the major problems in the beginning was the susceptibility of the recovery
boiler in fouling in both the superheater section and generating bank. Superheater pluggage problems led to higher

1
gas outlet temperatures which in part caused numerous pluggage incidents in the generating bank, resulting in the
unavoidable water washes and mill downtime. In addition to the pluggage problem, there was also a steam
circulation issue in the boiler, related to a mechanical problem. Over the next few years, recovery boiler experts
from within the mill, the boiler manufacturer, independent consultants and Paprican, tried to work out the root cause
for the problems. While the boiler vendor and mill management tried to resolve the mechanical issues, the operation
and technical personnel from within the mill as well as research engineers from Paprican worked on the process
issues. The focus of this paper is to describe the steps taken to resolve the pluggage problems.

System Setup

The Chemical Recovery Area in this mill consists of 5-effect falling film evaporators, a single drum recovery boiler
and a recausticizing plant. When it was built, the mill had the largest single-drum recovery boiler in the world
(Figure 1). The hearth heat release rate at design loading was 2.8 million W/m2 (or 895,000 BTU/hr/ft2). Other
design parameters for the boiler are listed as follows:

Furnace size
 12.2 m in width * 12.2 m in depth * 50.5 m in height (to boiler roof)

Dissolved solids (rated capacity)

 2,639 tonnes of dry solids (hardwood with heat value of 13,726 kJ/kg) per day
 2,498 tonnes of dry solids (softwood with heat value of 14,500 kJ/kg) per day
 Target solids at liquor header < 75%

Steam (rated capacity)

 379,000 kg of steam per hour (hardwood) and boiler efficiency of 64.73%
 387,000 kg of steam per hour (softwood) and boiler efficiency of 66.17%
 6300 kPa
 454oC

Air System
 3-level air system
 Primary air with 9 windboxes (containing 4 port openings each) on each of the four walls of the boiler.
 Secondary air with 6 ports on the left wall and 6 ports on the right wall (interlaced), in addition there are five
gas burner ports on each side wall.
 Tertiary air with 4 ports on the front wall and 3 ports on the back wall (interlaced)

Recovery Boiler Control

 Previously operated on flow control.
 Have since been changed to mass firing with the total combustion air ratioed to the tonnage with trims coming
from furnace outlet O2; the air split (primary/secondary/tertiary) was set by the operators at about 34% : 33% :
33% at normal firing rates [1].

2
Figure 1: Schematics of the Recovery Boiler.

3
BOILER TROUBLESHOOTING AND OPTIMIZATION RESULTS

Some problems are expected when starting up a new recovery boiler in a green field mill. Sometimes certain
problems come about only after the mill has run for a substantial period of time. While recovery boiler fouling may
happen very quickly when it is caused by equipment deficiency, subtle changes due to buildup of non-process
elements may not become noticeable until months or years after a mill startup. This was exactly the case at this mill.
The fouling problems during the first four years of mill operation were caused by various deficiencies that became
noticeable at different times. Actions were taken when the problems showed up. Figure 2 shows the boiler
performance since mill startup. There were a number of water washes in 1994. After some mechanical changes, the
situation got better in 1995. However, the water wash frequency increased again in 1996 and more process
optimization work was done in between 1996 and 1997. Since 1997, no water washes have been done except during
scheduled maintenance periods.

Figure 2: Historical Recovery Boiler Water Wash Frequency.

250 600,000

Da 500,000 To
200 nn
ys es
Be 400,000 of So
tw W 150 Bl lid
ee as s
n he 300,000 ac
k Fir
W s 100 Li ed
at 200,000
qu
er or
50
100,000

0 0
19 19 19 19 19
94 95 96 97 98
Year

Operating Days to Sched. S/D Operating Days to Pluggage S/D Solids Fired

Some of the most important findings were recognized in 1996-1997. A positive relationship was identified between
SO2 emission rates and attemperator valve opening which was an indicator of boiler fouling. Figure 3 shows that as
SO2 emissions increased, the degree of generating bank plugging would increase. The attemperator valve would also
close when SO2 increased, as illustrated in Figure 4. That suggests that the temperature of superheated steam
between high-temperature side and the low-temperature side of the superheater decreased, presumably due to poor
heat transfer in the superheater section and generating bank. The poor heat transfer was further assumed to result
from increasing deposits on the superheater and generating bank tubes, i.e. fouling. Figures 3 and 4 also show an
interesting phenomenon in that the boiler fouling can be reversed if SO 2 emissions are minimized. The mill was able
to set up the boiler to reverse the fouling process without compromising the mill production rate. In fact, the
technique produced better results if the mill ran at full rate. Though the exact role of SO 2 on boiler fouling is still
being debated, the mere identification of this relationship allowed the mill to modify the process and use the change
in SO2 emission rate to determine very quickly whether positive change to the process had been made, compared to
the lengthy wait for changes in the degree of boiler fouling.

4
Figure 3: Relationship between SO2 Emissions and Generating Bank Pluggage Factor

500 1.05

450 SO2 Emission Gen. Bank Plug Factor

1.00

400

Generating Bank Inlet Fouling Factor

0.95
350

300
SO2 Emission

0.90

250

0.85
200

150
0.80

100

0.75
50

0 0.70
59 Day Period

Figure 4: relationship Between SO2 Emission and Attemperator Valve Openings

500 80.0

450 70.0

SO2 Emission Attemperator Valve

400 60.0

350 50.0 At
te
m
S
O2 300 pe
40.0
E rat
mi or
ss 250 Va
30.0 lv
io
n e
(p O
200 20.0 pe
p
m) ni
ng
150 10.0 (%
)

100 0.0

50 -10.0

0 -20.0

59 Day Period

The following section is a description of all the steps that the mill took to improve the boiler runnability. These
actions were innovative in the sense that no other mills had been known to use SO2 as a monitoring tool as well as to

5
successfully reverse the superheater fouling process while the boiler was running at full maximum capacity rating
(MCR). In fact, the knowledge obtained from optimizing this recovery boiler was shared with other mills. Following
the same strategy, these other mills have been able to reproduce the improvement in their own boiler operations.

Action plan to improve the boiler runnability included the following:

 Increased the number of sootblowers and changed the sootblowing sequence and frequency
 Changed the type of liquor nozzles used
 Changed the liquor nozzle configuration - orientation and angles
 Monitored liquor firing characteristics - temperature, pressure, solids content
 Controlled sulphur dioxide emissions
 Controlled the liquor chloride content
 Evaluated the combustion air system
 Optimized the combustion air setup
 Monitored carryover
 Improved the boiler control system

Sootblower Optimization

In the several months after the mill started up, the recovery boiler suffered serious pluggage problems. Part of these
problems were attributed to insufficient sootblowers. The effective sootblowing radius was determined to be only
about 4 feet [2]. Over the next several years, 12 blowers were added to the boiler. Figure 5 shows the current
locations of the sootblowers. At the time this paper was written, the 66 blowers are enough to keep the boiler
reasonably clean. Some significant buildup is still noticeable where the blowers are 12-13 feet apart, particularly in
the area between blowers #13 and #15. Plans include the insertion of another set of blowers in this area to keep the
maximum distance at less than 10 feet.

6
Figure 5: Sootblower Locations for the Recovery Boiler. Blowers number 31, 32, 41, 42, 47, 48, 61, 62, 63, 64, 57
and 58 were added to the original package in May 1994.

7
The original boiler design had the sootblower head pressure set at 2700 kPa. Literature indicated that the gain in
efficiency was insignificant whether the head pressure was at 2100 or 2700 kPa [1]. The sootblower steam pressure
was subsequently reduced to 2100 kPa. Decreasing the steam pressure by 600 kPa did not significantly shorten the
effective sootblowing radius or produce any noticeable adverse effects. The steam saving as a result of this change
was approximately 5000 kg/hour, 1.3% of the total boiler steam production that was otherwise not available to
support the mill production.

The mill also found that most of the soot tended to deposit on the superheater and generating bank sections. As a
result of this observation, the focus of the sootblowing sequence was more towards the front side of the boiler. Table
I compares the proportion of time each boiler section is blown. The mill adopted the strategy of activating one
blower at a time and unlike some other mills, the superheater and generating bank sections are blown top-down from
front to back. Whenever outages in other areas of the mill forced the recovery boiler to go off liquor temporarily, the
sequence would be changed so that primarily the first two banks of sootblowers in the superheater section would be
activated.

Table I: Sootblowing Frequency Distribution for Various Areas.

Location Sootblowing Frequency

Startup 1996 1997 1999
Superheater 37% 38% 47% 52%
Screen 18% 12% 12% 12%
Generating Bank 30% 32% 26% 26%
Economizer 15% 18% 15% 10%

The additional blowers and change in sootblowing sequence and frequency resolved the pluggage problem in the
early days and the boiler no longer got taken down for water wash even during ‘opportunity’ shutdowns. That led to
the improvement in boiler operation in 1995 as indicated in Figure 2. The pluggage that came about later on in 1996
was caused by the process problem that will be discussed later.

Types and Configuration of Liquor Nozzles

The original liquor nozzles were supposed to be the regular splash plate type supplied by the boiler vendor. It was
found; however, that the mechanical carryover was very high when using these nozzles and that this contributed to
the boiler plugging problems. Both hot and cold air flow analyses were conducted on the boiler. It was found that
there was a significant high velocity chimney on the front side of the boiler. In order to avoid spraying liquor into
that strong updraft area, the nozzles on the front, left and right sides of the boiler were switched to the wedge type
which directed most of the liquor spray away from the front and to either side (see Figure 6). Two splash plate
nozzles were used on the rear wall of the boiler up till early 1999. With the down draft along that wall of the boiler,
splash plate nozzles did not pose any problem in terms of mechanical carryover. However, with the successful
optimization of the air system, that will be discussed in a later section, the updraft area moved a little closer to the
back side, and it became necessary to go to wedge type nozzle on the rear wall as well.

Several sizes of nozzles have been tried. When the splash plates were in use, 32-mm guns with the nozzle bore size
and plate angles given in Table II were used with reasonably good results. Depending on the production rate, the
operators would change to nozzles with different bore sizes to maintain liquor pressure so the spray was not so
coarse that it did not burn properly or too fine that the droplets got carried up by the flue gas. 50-mm guns and
nozzles were occasionally required at high production rate to maintain these liquor pressure on target; however, the
operator found them to be a hindrance for port clearance and their turndown ratio was very poor. When the low
pressure-drop splash plate nozzles on the back wall of the boiler were changed to the higher pressure drop wedge
type, the flowrate through the nozzles on the other three side increased even during normal production. This problem
was compounded with the change to hi-solids firing which resulted in higher pressure drop at the nozzle at a given
firing rate to achieve the optimal droplet size. It became quickly apparent that a nozzle between 32 and 50 mm size
was required. A set of 38-mm guns and nozzles that would fit its 4-wedge liquor firing configuration with hi-solids
firings was used.

After the mill started using the 48/55 wedge nozzle, the operators found it more beneficial to go with wedge nozzles

8
exclusively. It offers much better turndown ratio. If the production rate is decreased due to liquor inventory
problems, an operator can simply go to a smaller nozzle and there would be no dramatic change in spray pattern.
The operators use the liquor pressure as guideline for nozzle changes, trying to keep it within the range 110-130 kPa.
By doing that, the operators are generally assured that the liquor spray will avoid the middle updraft as long as the
liquor pressure is within the desired range.
Figure 6: Configuration of the black liquor nozzles.

The Splash Plate (SP) was no longer used after Hi-solids firing

Spouts
SP SP

Wedge
(Hi-solids Firing)

Wedge Wedge

Front wall
Wedge

Table II: Summary of the Different Types of Liquor Nozzles Used in this Mill.

Vendor Supplied Nozzles

Nozzle Type Nozzle Bore Size (mm) Nozzle angle
Splash Plate 32/52 25.4 52
Splash Plate 34/45 27.0 45
Wedge 34/49 27.0 49
Wedge 38/52 30.2 52
Wedge 32/52 25.4 52
Wedge 48/55 38.1 55

Physical Properties of As-Fired Liquor

The height of char bed inside the boiler played a big role in boiler performance. After some testing, it was found that
the ideal bed height inside the recovery boiler is somewhere between the primary and secondary air ports levels. At
this bed height, SO2 emissions can be kept to a minimum and clear green liquor is produced with minimum char
carryover.

Bed height and growth are also partly controlled by manipulation of liquor temperature, pressure and solids content.
These three parameters dictated the liquor droplet size and the extent of in-flight evaporation and pyrolysis of the
droplets. The boiler in this mill ran best when the liquor droplets would finish the evaporation process and the
pyrolysis had just started as the droplets hit the wall or the char bed. In order to accomplish this target, the following
guidelines were established for the physical characteristics of the liquor at the nozzle (Table III). These target values
would vary slightly when the liquor heating value fluctuated. The extreme case would be when the recovery boiler

9
switches from burning softwood to hardwood liquor.

Table III: Guideline for physical Properties of As-Fired Liquor.

Physical properties of the liquor Normal solids Firing Hi-Solids Firing[2]

Temperature 117-123oC 126-131oC
Pressure 115-125 kPa 115-140 kPa
Solids contents in the as-fired liquor 72-77% 78-81%
Spray angle of the liquor nozzles -14o -15o

If the physical characteristics of the as-fired liquor were not controlled properly such that the bed would start to
build beyond the secondary air port level, SO2 emissions would become evident. From past experience, high SO2
emission was directly related to fouling in the superheater which, in turn led to closing of the attemperator valve
between the two superheater sections. Superheating fouling would lead to an increase in the outlet gas temperature
that would bring it closer to the sticky temperature of the fumes. Compared to the superheater where the elements
are 16 inches apart, the generating bank elements are much closer at 8” spacing. Sticky dust at the generating bank
would cause rapid plugging, which would require cleaning by water washing the boiler.

SO2 emissions are directly related to the char bed temperature. High char bed temperature creates more sodium
fumes which react with the SO2 generated to form sodium salts. The temperature guideline shown in Table III
allowed enough sodium fumes to be generated to react with almost all of the sulphurous gas generated in the
furnace. The actual SO2 emission target was less than 5 ppm. The liquor pressure had to be regulated as well. If the
pressure got too low, the liquor droplets would be too large for efficient burning and the bed would grow larger and
cooler. However, if the liquor header pressure was too high, the droplets would be too fine and they would not reach
the bed before being carried up to the upper furnace unburned. It was therefore important to follow the guidelines
for liquor temperature and pressure.

Another way to increase the net amount of heat supplied to the char bed is to increase the solids content in the as-
fired liquor. Two trend graphs indicate how the boiler reacted with excursions in physical properties of black liquor.
Figure 7 and 8 showed that low as-fired solids content could lead to poor firing characteristics of the liquor and
buildup in the char bed. High SO2 resulted and the boiler started to foul. Eventually the attemperator valve started to
close. However, the tube fouling was reversed when the as-fired liquor solids content was increased to within the 69
to 72% range.

Figures 7: Effect of the Solids Content in the As-Fired Liquor on SO2 emissions.

78 140

As-Fired Liquor Density SO2 Emission

76
120

74
As-Fired Liquor Solids (%)

100
SO2 Emission (ppm)

72

80

70

60

68

40
66

20
64

62 0
16 Day Period 10
Figure 8: Effect of the Solids Content in the As-Fired Liquor on Superheater Pluggage.

78 30
As-Fired Liquor Density Attemperator Opening

76 25

74 20 Att
em
per
As ato
r
- 72 15
Val
Fir ve
Op
ed eni
Li 70 10 ng
(%)
qu
or
So 68 5

lid
s
(% 66 0

)
64 -5

62 -10

16 Day Period

Chemical Properties of Black Liquor

It has been well documented that high chloride and potassium contents in black liquor could lead to recovery boiler
pluggage [doug singbeil, honghi tran]. The first couple of years after the mill first started up in 1993, most of the
pluggage problems were caused by insufficient sootblowing, as well as the lack of knowledge on the relationship
between the boiler performance and the physical characteristics of black liquor. Very little attention was paid to the
liquor chemistry and few tests were done to determine the liquor composition. Computer simulation results indicated
that the chloride levels in the liquor system would take more than two years to build up to a harmful level. Figures 9
and 10 show the increasing trend for the potassium and chloride in the precipitator catch and white liquor Potassium
reached the equilibrium level fairly quickly, likely because wood chips had high potassium levels. Unlike the coastal
mills, the chloride input was fairly low, coming mainly from the purchased caustic fed into the liquor system. The
chloride level built up slowly and after 4 years was at the predicted high equilibrium level. At that time, the molar
ratio of chloride, Cl/(Na+K) reached the point that the deposit sticky temperature dropped low enough that the boiler
became susceptible to pluggage due to chloride buildup. The importance of liquor chemistry was amplified when it
was decided to operate with a hot char bed to minimize SO2 emissions because the fuming rate from the boiler
increased exponentially in the temperature range for zero SO2 emissions.

Once the liquor chemistry was suspected to be the root cause for boiler pluggage, a campaign was started to lower
the concentrations of these elements in the liquor system. First of all it was decided to dump the electrostatic
precipitator ash via the dust collection system. This ash was normally fed into a sluice bowl on top of the
precipitator mix tank and got mixed into the black liquor. The way to dump precipitator dust was to empty the black
liquor/saltcake slurry into the recovery sump where it got recovered into the spill tank. Then the black liquor flow to
the sluice bowl was stopped; instead, hot water hoses were inserted into 50 mm openings on top of the sluice bowl.
Enough water was run into the bowl to create a 45-50% solids slurry in the tank. A vacuum truck was called in to

11
withdraw the slurry through a 8” drain port off the precipitator mix tank and transfer the slurry to the landfill (see
Figure 11). This took place at a frequency of about 2-3% of the boiler operating time and it lasted for a 12-hour
period each time. The withdrawal rate was about 4 tonnes of equivalent saltcake per hour. This has proven to be a
cheap and efficient way of purging chloride and potassium from the liquor system. At the same time, it served as a
good avenue to purge excess sulphur from the system. This mill has a surplus of sulphur in the liquor system. In
order to control the liquor sulphidity between 29% and 31%, sulphur normally had to be purged from the mill and
that used to be from the chlorine dioxide generator (R8). The new strategy called for purging sulphur from the
precipitator mix tank exclusively because that would help to purge chloride and potassium while purging to control
sulphidity.

Figure 9: Potassium and Chloride Contents in Precipitator Catch

16.00

14.00

12.00 began purging

ESP catch.
10.00

8.00

6.00

4.00 switched to purer

caustic makeup.
2.00

0.00 15 18 22 18 20 25 27 19
1- 3- 1- 22 5- 11 30 27 26 31 6- 11 27 22 27 10 10 27 24 15 15 28
M Fe Ap - - Ju - - - - - - - Fe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ar- b- r- Ap M n- Jul Jul Au Se Oc No De b- M Ap M Ju Jul Au Se No De Ja Fe M Ap M Jul Au
94 97 97 r- ay 97 - - g- p- t- v- c- 98 ar- r- ay n- - g- p- v- c- n- b- ar- r- ay - g-
97 - 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 98 98 - 98 98 98 98 98 98 99 99 99 99 - 99 99
97 98 99
% Potassium % Chloride

Figure 10: Potassium and Chloride Contents in White Liquor

began purging
7.0 ESP catch. 30.0
27.0
6.0
24.0
5.0
g/L 21.0
g/L
Na 4.0
18.0 K+
Cl
3.0 switched to purer 15.0
caustic makeup. 12.0
2.0
9.0
1.0
6.0
0.0 5- 17- 1- 21- 12- 29- 30- 17- 6- 1- 1- 29- 14- 12- 14- 13- 11- 20- 29- 1- 31- 18- 15- 16- 7- 22- 5- 13- 3.0
Fe Ma Ap Ap Ma Ma Ju Jul Au Se Oc Oc No De Ja Fe Ma Ap Ma Jul Jul Au Se No Ja Fe Ap Ma
b- r- r- r- y- y- n- -97 g- p- t- t- v- c- n- b- r- r- y- -98 -98 g- p- v- n- b- r- y-
97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 98 98 98 98 98 98 98 98 99 99 99 99

g/L NaCl g/L K+(AA)

12
Figure 11: Schematics on Dust Purging from Precipitator Mix Tank.

Precipitator Precipitator
Dust Dust

Water

Liquor

Steam

Vacuum Truck

Another important step taken by the mill was to switch the caustic shipped into the mill from regular grade to a purer
grade. That reduced the chloride content of caustic into the mill from 10,000 ppm NaCl to 100 ppm. With a caustic
budget of 8.9 kg/t (6.3 in brownstock and 2.6 in R8, possibly 2.0 in feedwater), the daily input of chloride via caustic
dropped from 115 kg/day to 12 kg/day. The switch in caustic grade plus aggressive chloride purging in May 1997
managed to quickly lower the chloride content in the liquor system by more than 50% in a short period of time.
After the initial drop, the chloride content was monitored very closely and regularprecipitator dumping kept the
liquor chemistry under control. Since then, there had been no water wash caused by superheater and generating bank
fouling.

After the mill lowered the potassium content in white liquor to about 20 g/L and the chloride content went from over
5 g/L NaCl to 0.7, the deposits sticky temperature was high enough (>715 oC) that superheater fouling caused by
sticky fumes was no longer a problem. Occasionally the mill would unintentionally allow these undesirable
chemicals to build up in the system and the boiler would start to foul. The dust would then have to be purged much
more frequently to lower the content of chloride and potassium. Once the chemistry was back within the normal
range, the superheater deposit could be cleaned up by the sootblowing and the fouling process was reversed. Figure
12 shows one of these incidents which happened soon after a 4-day mill outage including the recovery boiler. Just
before the shutdown, it was decided that the dust purging program would be suspended because the normal liquor
loss during an outage should be sufficient to deep the chloride under control. However, it was an excellent outage
and minimal liquor was sent to sewer. Even then, the dumping program was not restarted for 2-3 weeks after the
mill startup. This allowed the chloride molar ratio to increase from 0.98 to 1.40. That was enough to cause
superheater fouling, and the attemperator valve started to close. Aggressive dumping started and over the next 11
days, 240 tonnes of saltcake (5% of the normal soda inventory) was purged from the liquor system. That decreased
the chloride molar ratio to 0.9% which was within the normal operating range. It then took about 5 days for the
sootblower to clean up the superheater deposits. This was accomplished with no decrease in boiler firing rate. In
fact, several times the boiler rate was decreased prior to the precipitator dust dumping program and the boiler
showed no sign of cleaning up as a result of the liquor interruption. That showed a clear relationship between
chloride content and boiler fouling.

The mill also examined other more sophisticated systems that use ion exchange to control the potassium and/or
chloride level. Rough cost estimates for these systems was at least $4,000,000. On the other hand, dumping the
precipitator dust to the landfill has minimal extra chemical cost because sulphur needed to be purged from the liquor
system for sulphidity control as part of a normal operation. Chloride and potassium purging was just the added
benefits when purging the sulphur from the chemical recovery area rather than from the ClO 2 Plant. Therefore, the
majority of the only extra cost was from contracting out the vacuum services for dust and leachate transfers between
the mill site and landfill, which cost no more than $30,000/year. It was simply an economic decision to continue
with the current program.

13
Figure 12: Effect of Chloride Purging on Superheater Fouling.

70.0 3000.0
Aggressive
Precipitator
Dust Dumping
60.0
2500.0

50.0
% Valve Opening or Tank Level

2000.0

Production Rate (t BLS/d)

40.0

Attemperator Valve
30.0 1500.0 Precip. Mix Tank Level
Boiler Rate (t BLS/d)

20.0
1000.0

10.0

500.0
0.0

36 - day Period
-10.0 0.0

Air System Optimization

It was mentioned previously that the physical properties of the liquor affected the char bed height which in turn
affects the boiler cleanliness. Another important factor for bed height control was the combustion air system setup.
The setup of the combustion air system was absolutely critical for optimal boiler operation.

While the primary air was to control reduction efficiency and keep the char bed from the edge of the boiler floor, the
tertiary air would complete the combustion process and the secondary air system helps to control the bed shape and
height. The ideal bed height is somewhere between the primary and secondary air levels as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Optimum Bed Height for this Recovery Boiler

Black Liquor Gun

Black Liquor Gun

Secondary Air

Primary Air
Secondary Air
Bed Level
Bed Level

Primary Air Primary Air

Side View Rear View Bed Level
Bed Level

Primary Air
Side View Rear View

14
Particulate going to the upper furnace can be divided into two types: 1) chemical fumes that were described earlier
and 2) mechanical carryover – smelt or liquor droplets that were not completely burned before leaving the lower
furnace. Some of the factors affecting the amount and properties of the fumes such as bed height, bed temperature
and liquor chemistry have already been described. The air system also played a role in controlling the fuming inside
the boiler, but the mill found out that if the air system is optimized to minimize the mechanical carryover, there was
a rippling effect on the quality of chemical fume. Another benefit from concentrating on minimizing the mechanical
carryover was the results were quickly measurable after process changes. As a result, fair amount of effort was made
to determine the perfect setting on the secondary air system, in this case an interlaced secondary air system.
Independent variables in the secondary air system include the following:

 Number and location of secondary air ports used

 Secondary air automatic damper openings
 Secondary air manual damper openings
 Secondary air pressure
 Char bed size

Mechanical carryover was measured by inserting an 18 mm diameter *150 mm probe coupon into a port on the front
side of the furnace across from the superheater for 10 minutes with the probe cooled to a constant 300 oC. Evaluation
was based on the weight and appearance of the deposits which adhered to the probe. Pink/red deposits on the
windward side of the probe came from smelt carryover and white deposits on the leeward side came from fumes.
The following discussion will concentrate on how the carryover was minimized.

The recovery boiler had secondary air ports on all four sides. Not all the air ports could be used to achieve the
interlaced system objective. Earlier work from Paprican [3] had shown that a good interlaced air pattern could
minimize the mechanical carryover by distributing the air evenly across the furnace while ensuring that air jets from
opposite sides of the boiler do not interfere with each other. Paprican initiated a project to optimize the recovery
boiler air system. They did cold flow measurement after a boiler maintenance shutdown. Figure 14a showed a
chimney, originally present at the front side of the boiler. Static pressure measurements were also taken into the
individual combustion air windboxes. The manual damper openings were adjusted until static pressure in the ‘open’
windboxes were optimized. In the end, a satisfactory interlaced air pattern and velocity profile were obtained by
opening only three secondary windboxes on each of the left and right sides (B, D, and F ports).

Figure 14: Air Velocity Profile Before and After Air System was Optimized

a) Before Optimization

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 b) After Optimization

Figure 15 shows the eventual secondary air configuration used by the mill after some trial and error. The windboxes
on the front and back sides of the boiler were bricked over. The manual dampers on the other windboxes were
closed, except for an 3-mm gap to maintain small amount of air through these ‘closed’ boxes to keep them cool.
These ‘closed’ windboxes essentially had no effect on the overall air pattern. Figure 14b indicates, that after the air
system optimization, the updraft was less significant and moved to the middle of the boiler where there was a lower
chance to carry the liquor droplets upward, i.e. less mechanical carryover. In 1999 after hi-solids firing was
implemented, the mill went to a 4*4 secondary air configuration. Opening up the ‘A’ ports helped keep the corner
of the boiler clean and the char bed uniform. The mechanical carryover also dropped by 40% as a result of the
change.

Figure 15: The Optimal Secondary Air Pattern

F E D C B A

Front

Rear

A B C D E F

Bricked Over Ports

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The mill also learned that the automatic secondary air dampers had to be at least 50% open for the air to have
enough momentum to travel most of the way across the boiler. A general misconception was that the same good
interlaced pattern could be achieved by operating with smaller secondary damper opening while increasing windbox
pressure. However that did not seem to provide enough momentum. Ifthe damper openings were too small, the air
flux got disrupted by the rising flue gas and not enough air could get into the centre of the bed [4]. Lack of air in the
furnace centre allowed the char bed to grow. Once a high enough bed was allowed to build up, the air would hit the
side of the char bed and got swept up the middle, thereby creating a chimney wherever the bed buildup was. This
high velocity jet stream would then carry liquor droplets up to the upper furnace. As a result of pyrolysis and
burning in flight, SO2 emissions would increase and the boiler would start to get plugged (Figure 16). Once again,
after the root cause for the pluggage was identified and appropriate corrective actions ware taken, the fouling
process reversed and the boiler was clean again in about a week. This observation confirmed the calculation results
for jet trajectory for the secondary air after leaving the windbox (Figure 17). When the dampers opening went from
100% to 40%, though the pressure would be a bit higher, the jet would get the middle of the furnace almost 1 m
above the windbox level, instead of 0.4 m.

Based on theoretical predictions and actual process data, guidelines were set up to keep the automatic damper at
least 75% open by setting the secondary air pressure at 300-350 mm of H2O. The char bed was constantly monitored
to make sure it stayed below the secondary air ports. At no times should the manual dampers on the ports that were
not used or natural gas ports be used to control the air pressure. The amount of secondary air had always been
around 32-34% of the total air used and this ratio had satisfied all firing conditions. The mechanical carryover was
monitored twice a week. If the mechanical carryover was high and/or pinkish, process parameters for the air and
liquor system would be examined. The sooner the problem was identified, the easier, faster and cheaper it was to
reverse the pluggage process.

Figure 16: Effect of Secondary Air Damper Opening on Boiler Pluggage.

50 200
Attemperator Valve Secondary Air Damper SO2 Emission

180

Secondary Air Damper Opening (%) or SO2 Emission (PPM)

40
160

140
Attemperator Valve Opening (%)

30

120

20 100

80

10
60

40
0

20

-10 0
22 days period

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Figure 17: Predicted Jet Trajectory for Secondary Air After Leaving the Secondary Windboxes with Different
Damper Openings.
Vertical Height from Windbox (m)

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 5 10
Left Right
Horiz. Dist. from windbox (m)
Windbox Windbox
40% Damper Opening 100% Dampering Opening

Recovery Boiler Control

While the mill switched to hi-solids firing, they also improved the automation around the boiler. The control scheme
given in Figure 18 was developed in-house and it was considerably simpler than some of the commercial control
packages. In summary, the firing rate was controlled based on a calculated tonnage setpoint. Total combustion air
was ratioed to the tonnage with trims coming from furnace outlet O 2. The air split (primary/secondary/tertiary) was
set by the operators at about 34% : 33% : 33% at normal firing rates. Some of the success from the automation and
hi-solids firing projects have been previously documented [1]. One noteworthy point was that ever since the
implementation of that project, the char bed burned hotter and the boiler has become much less susceptible to
pluggage. The frequency for precipitator dust purging decreased by more than 20%. One hypothesis for this
improvement is that the increase in carbonate content in the fumes lessened the sticky tendency of the fumes even
though the chloride and potassium contents did not change.

Figure 18: Recovery Boiler Control Scheme

Current T onnage Calculator

with Refractometer Selector
Excess O2
Controller with Hi/Lo AC362 YP815
Limits

T rim Control
T onnage
Liquor -to-Air Controller
FC859B FC859
Liquor Flow
Controller with Hi/Lo YP238
Controller
Limits

Switch T o Enable
T onnage/Flow C824B
Control

Switch T o Enable Liquor Pressure

C824 PC824
Pressure Control Controller

DNCG
(indicator
Primary Secondary only) T ertiary

Air Flow Liquor Pump Speed

FC200 FC220 FC931 FC230 H824A H824B
Controller Controller

#1Pump #2Pump

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CONCLUSION

Al-Pac faced the same pluggage problems in its state-of-the-art recovery boiler as a lot other mills did. In the five
years after the initial start-up, the mill developed a methodology to reverse the boiler fouling process while the mill
ran at a full production rate. The ‘Chemical Recovery Team’ and Paprican accomplished this by adding more
sootblowers, controlling the liquor chemistry by purging precipitator catch, modifying the boiler process to
minimize the mechanical carryover and lessen the stickiness of fumes, as well as monitoring the SO 2 emission rate.
Most of the changes were procedural related to the process and operation; other than the sootblowers, no major
expense was incurred with this project. The benefit of this project to the mill was over $2,000,000/year with an
annual cost of less than $30,000/year, plus minimal chemical loss which is attributed to chloride purging and not
sulphidity control. Another benefit was that it eliminated the recovery boiler from being the mill bottleneck area.

References

1) Greenwood L., Ip T., Fehr D., Hyde., Karidio I., Weiss K., and Uloth V., “Benefits of Hi-Solids Firing and
Recovery Boiler Control Implementation in Al-Pac Forest Industries Inc.”, proceedings of the 86th
PAPTAC Annual Meeting in Montreal, pp. A155-A173, February 2000.

2) De Melo M., Moskal T.E., and Patel R.L., “Sootblower Advancements for Improved Recovery Boiler
Operations”, proceedings from the 29th Pulp and Paper Annual Meeting, ABTCP, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 996.

3) Karidio, I., Markovic, C., Uloth, V. and Thorn, P., “Cold Flow Velocity Measurements in Recovery Boilers.
Part I: Interaction of Primary and Secondary Air Flows”, The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering,
Volume 75, pp. 190-195, February 1997.

4) Blackwell B., Hastings C., Der K., Hansen S., and Quick J., “Simple Mathematical Analysis of Air Jets in
Recovery and Power Boilers”, Paperi ja Puu v.74, no. 3, pp. 216-222, 1992.

Acknowledgements

Thanks for the assistance in the Recovery Boiler Optimization go to Mill Manager Mac Palmiere, Chemical
Recovery Business Unit Leader Mike Winrow, Steam Plant personnel, Chemical Recovery Specialist Dave Fehr,
Maintenance Engineer Tom Pavlicek, DCS Specialist Dave Hyde, Process Engineers Jason Melanson and Susan
Kingston, and all the laboratory technicians from the Technical Department.

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