Field Studies on the Removal Characteristics of Particulate Matter and SOx in Ultra-Low Emission Coal-Fired Power Plant

In order to reduce the environmental smog caused by coal combustion, air pollution control devices have been widely used in coal-fired power plants, especially of wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD) and wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP). In this work, particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) and sulfur oxides (SOx) have been studied in a coal-fired power plant. The plant is equipped with selective catalytic reduction, electrostatic precipitator, WFGD, WESP. The results show that the PM10 removal efficiencies in WFGD and WESP are 54.34% and 50.39%, respectively, and the overall removal efficiency is 77.35%. WFGD and WESP have effects on the particle size distribution. After WFGD, the peak of particles shifts from 1.62 to 0.95 μm, and the mass concentration of fine particles with aerodynamic diameter less than 0.61 μm increases. After WESP, the peak of particle size shifts from 0.95 to 1.61 μm. The differences are due to the agglomeration and growth of small particles. The SO3 mass concentration increases after SCR, but WFGD has a great influence on SOx with the efficiency of 96.56%. WESP can remove SOx, but the efficiency is 20.91%. The final emission factors of SO2, SO3, PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 are 0.1597, 0.0450, 0.0154, 0.0267 and 0.0215 (kg · t−1), respectively. Compared with the research results without ultra-low emission retrofit, the emission factors are reduced by 1~2 orders of magnitude, and the emission control level of air pollutants is greatly improved. © 2022, Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.