Preface Let us not suffer from the ignominy that only coal quality is generally bad – an usual rant by most of the coal users world wide. People complain about quality everywhere. Why? There are two perspectives. Even between the lines, quality is expensive and is a dynamic proposition. It differs across genders, nationality and habitually. For a first time user, everything is unmanageable, and thus something is of bad quality ! Most computer vendors would agree that most of the complaints they receive from their customers can be solved only by pressing the right button. Women generally find driving cars more cumbersome- an essential quality attribute-than men. A lond time user makes less complain than a first time user. But these are not excuses for bad quality. Why then, after more than 50 years of history of quality engineering people complain, and quite rightly. “Why is quality still so bad?” laments Scott Paton, editor-in-chief of Quality Digest, a major trade publication for the quality profession, in his April 2002 editorial. Although he notes that the quality of U.S. products as a whole is better now that it was in 1972, it is worse than it was in 1992 (when quality was the buzzword among business). And it’s not just in manufacturing. Paton states, “If you’ve had a truly high-quality experience on a recent flight or with your loan application or buying a car or with your hospital, you’re in the minority.” He places the blame squarely on senior management, who fail to see the simple but essential relationship between customers’ needs and expectations and designing, building and delivering great products and services. The picture is more or less the same everywhere. One can agree completely- the war for better quality must continue-which is why is this book, that makes a conscious effort to capture the realms of coal combustion quality control, a hugely important but largely neglected field. There is however an imperative of bad quality in this sector: that is demand far superseding supply. Today’s business and not-for-profit organization need to capitalize on the knowledge and “lessons learned” that excellent organizations have acquired in other fields. We believe that less attention is paid to quality today as the result of two forces-a “good-news, bad-news” type of story. The good news is that the principles of quality that were new to many organizations in the early 1980s have become a common part of routine management practice; in other words, quality is so ingrained in the cultures of many organizations that managers and employees need not consciously think about it. As Mercedes’ longtime CEO noted, “Quality is part of our heritage, one of our core values.” The bad news is that without a conscious focus on it, it is easy for quality to slip by the wayside, as apparently happened at Mercedes. For many other organizations, quality is viewed as a short-term fix; when the hype and rhetoric passes, so do their quality efforts. Quality often still makes a backseat to economic pressures.  Nevertheless, quality has not faded away, and will not fade away, simply because it works, with clear evidence that it improves the bottom line. Quality efforts are alive and well, perhaps under a different moniker in some organizations, and will remain an important part of a continual quest for improving performance across the globe. Joseph Juran, one of the most respected leaders of quality in the twentieth century, suggested that the past century will be defined by historians as the century of productivity. He also stated that the current century has to be the century of quality.  “We’ve made dependence on the quality of our technology a part of life.” Does it apply to coal Quality and is it showing ? Yes and no. Yes, because values of quality enrich the complete organization in many other ways. So an organization develops a competence and value that it can cash in many other ways, only one of them is by selling good quality coal. No , because a non-renewable commodity  like coal is so much of short supply that suppliers seem to hold the baton stick to favour or disfavour an user.  So for both the new and old entrants into the business of coal one has an opportunity and a responsibility to improve the quality of a company and society, not just for products and services, but for every other thing an organization stands.  The last word. Have you seen a cheat making great in life? You might see one or two, but many around us made good by staying upright, informed and honest. Does it invoke a meaning of what quality is?

Read the book

The 20 chapters will take you to the realms of coal and lignite quality.

Chapter	Title
1	Coal : Basic and industrial fuel’s quality is declining
2	Quality and Its Relevance to Coal Producing and Utilizing Industries
3	Pyrolysis of Coal and Ash Deposition in Coal-Fired Boilers
4	Factors Influencing the Combustion of Lignite
5	Metallurgical Coke for the blast furnace, its quality and tradability
6	Coke and Blast Furnace Reactions
7	Impacts of Coal Burning Rate fluctuations on the Cement Clinker
8	Quality Based Coal Trading: Worldwide Practices
9	Transportation and Storage of R.O.M. Coal
10	Quality Control of Coal by Blending
11	Sampling of Coal Beds for Analysis
12	On Line Analysis of Coal Quality
13	Principles of Sampling of Coal For Quality Characteristics
14	An Application to Statistical Quality Control of R.O.M. Coal
15	ISO 9000 Series Quality System for Coal Production and Supply
16	Introduction to Six Sigma and Quality Functions Deployment : Special Reference to Coal Mine and User Plant Relationship
17	The North American Coal Sampling Systems and Quality Control Procedures
18	The Test Standardisation Method: The South African Sampling and Analysis of Coal and Coke
19	Methods of Determination of Forms of Sulfur in Coal

20                  Sized Coal Degradation at Transfer Points

The book flyer
Topic: The Book and the Author
Book Title: Combustion Quality of Coal and Lignite: Mine, Power, Steel and Cement Plants’ Operational Guidebook.

 

ISBN : 81-902768-1-6

2009

Copyright © Author

Deluxe Hard bound

No of pages: 430 + VI

No. of Figures: 185

No. of Tables:  127

Published by Cygnus

Printed  at Color Graphics

Marketing & Distribution by Wide Publishing, a division of Wide Educational Products and Services, Kolkata , India,

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1. Cygnus ,55B Mirza Ghalib Street, 8th Floor, Saberwal House, Kolkata-16.India

          Phone : +9133 30281737/41/42, Fax : +91 33 2217 7343.          Email: cygnus.kolkata@gmail.com    2.   Wide Publishing, 7/1/1 Samar Sarani , Kolkata-700002.India. Phone: +91 3222   278159/283703, Fax : + 91 3222 282282.         Email: wide.publishing@gmail.com, jayantaism@gmail.com 

 

A simple story on coal quality - A Good Rain and  A Coal Wagon

Keep this simple. A small power plant makes adjusted profit of 15% on dry coal burning. Its one 50 tonne open wagon load of coal ,passing through a splashing rain  absorbs upto about 3 tonnes of water as both external and internal moisture on a rainy day. This renders an increase in hauling load by about 5-7% of the total tractive effort, increases engine fuel burning rate upto 10 % , increases boiler heat loss by more than 10%, can increase boiler surface pitting by 12% and leave 10% higher unburnt carbon in the boiler coal train. This is not all. There are many more damaging aspects that control the economics of plant operation .e.g., increased operational rate and time of the plant, parts wear due to increased load, etc . In effect, those 3 tonnes of water per wagon can increase total adjusted operating cost by about 15%. The plant’s profit evaporates. This is the unfinished story of a single good rain and an open coal wagon.

  

 

A Brief Forward of the book

With sky-rocketing oil prices, coal is back to the centre stage in the global energy scene with all its right attributes vis-a-vis affordability, reliability and acceptability. A surge in global coal production can be predicted with a flurry of activity in acquisitions of coal properties in remote corners of the world. It is in this context, apart from the increasingly traded volume of coal, that assessment of coal quality becomes an area of seminal importance. Professor Jayanta Bhattacharya's book is thus not only topical, but timely as well and provides an outstanding compilation on coal quality and its relevance to producing and utilizing industries. The entire gamut of issues on coal use, the combustion characteristics of coal and lignite, the specificity of properties vis-a-vis metallurgical coal, the means and methods of quality control through blending, principles of sampling and statistical quality control, all these have been authoritatively examined in the 19 chapters of this publication. Professor Bhattacharya's latest publication will surely become a vade mecum for the global coal and lignite based producer and user industry across mine, power, metallurgical and cement plants. This is perhaps the first book of its kind in the world that captures unifying quality aspects of coal and lignite for all types of user industry.- Prof. Ajoy K Ghose, FNAE; Ex-Director, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad; Chief  Editor, International Journal of Mine Metals and Fuels.

 About the author

Jayanta Bhattacharya is the Professor and Head of the Department of Mining Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Among other things, he was awarded three prestigious fellowships namely Monbusho( Japan) Research Fellowship, BrainPool Senior Scientist Fellowship ( South Korea) and Helmholtz Association Research Stipendiary ( Germany) for his outstanding contribution in research .He has more than 120 publications out of which many are highly cited all over the world. He has five more books to his credit and they are: Quality Control and Management: Methods and Practices in the Mineral Industries, Global Corporate Environmentalism ,Disruptive Innovation: Strategies for Enterprise Growth, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Ethical and Strategic Choice. He has edited a number of conference proceedings and monographs. This book is his commemorative offering on the completion of mineral quality awareness programme for the industry that he initiated 15 years ago.

Dr. Bhattacharya is a Fellow in the National Academy of Engineering ( FNAE), is in the editorial board of 2 international journals, and works with various international and national agencies as consultant.

 

Order your copy now.Send an email to : cygnus.kolkata@gmail.com

 

Introduction of the book
Introduction  

Keep this simple.A 50 tonne open wagon load of coal ,passing through a splashing rain can absorb upto about 3 tonnes of water as both external and internal moisture.This renders an increase in hauling load by about 5-7% of the total tractive effort, increases engine fuel burning rate upto 10 % , increases boiler heat loss by more than 10%, can increase boiler surface pitting by 12% and leave 10% higher unburnt carbon in the boiler coal train.This is not all.There are many more damaging aspects that control the economics of plant operation.In effect, those 3 tonnes of water per wagon can increase total adjusted operating cost by about 15%. This is the unfinished story of a single good rain and an open coal wagon.

Coal quality can have a significant impact on combustion performance, particularly in the case of pulverised coal systems. Introduction of out-of-design coals can lead to ignition, flame- stability and burnout problems. While some low value coals have been successfully introduced after modifications to equipment and operating practices, even with modifications, a boiler derating can occur. Changes in the heat distribution pattern have generally arisen, often decreasing the boiler efficiency.  Fluidised bed and stoker systems, on the other hand, can be markedly more tolerant of changes in the quality of the fuel being burnt. The influence of coal quality on combustion has become increasingly important as power-generating utilities have sought to reduce their fuel costs, and the costs associated with emissions control, through the use of coals that may well have significantly different quality parameters from those on which their power-station designs were based. Coal quality has an important influence on the ignition and flame-stability performance of pulverised coals. The volatile-matter yield provides an indication of the ignition behaviour of a coal, whereas the heating value and moisture and ash contents provide a guide to flame stability.  One of the objectives of the book is to look at the potential impacts that different-quality coals may have on combustion performance, the possibility of predicting performance from known coal-quality parameters, and the potential impact of burning low grade, high-ash coals on aspects such as heat transfer within a furnace- boiler system.The extent to which any modifications can be undertaken is limited by the design of the boiler and the impact on other equipment (both ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’), as well as the cost. The cost of any new equipment and/or modifications has to be balanced against the fuel-cost savings. Although lower-cost coals have been more successfully utilised when blended with bituminous coals, the impacts of blending widely different coal types are still not understood, and data are rarely published on how the behaviour of coals/blends predicted from bench- and pilot-scale combustion tests differ from their actual performance in a utility boiler . All coals have a significant content of ash-forming inorganic material that cannot be economically removed before combustion. This amount can range from below 3% in a clean low-ash feedstock, to over 40% in some low-grade coals.  The amount of ‘free’ mineral matter will depend on its distribution in the coal matrix. Some particles will consist solely of organic material; others will be associations (in various proportions) of organic and inorganic components Most coal-fired generating capacity is based on pulverised coal fired boilers. Uncontrolled or unexpected deposits on the heat transfer surfaces in and around the boiler can interfere with operation, and cause unplanned shut-downs or reduced output and efficiency. The deposits are derived from the mineral matter in coal and its other inorganic components. They can be difficult to remove, and major incidents of internal damage have occurred as a result of fused ash material falling to the bottom of the boiler. The deposits interfere with heat transfer. With partial blockage between tube banks, increased gas velocities elsewhere are often associated with erosion. Corrosion may also occur underneath a developing deposit. All these factors affect the efficiency and availability of an electricity-generation plant, and hence the cost of the power produced. In a paper from the early 1990s, the possible savings that could be made by better control of ash deposition in coal-fired boilers in the USA were quoted as being some US$400 million/year. This was based on achieving a 1% decrease in heat rate and a 1% improvement in availability. Earlier estimates of the ash-related losses on a single 500 MWe unit using high-fouling lignite could be as high as US$8 million/year. In another estimate, Pennsylvania Power and Light Co, with 12 coal-fired plants of 8000 MWe capacity assessed its losses due to coal quality at approximately US$5 million/year. While difficult to assess accurately, it is clear that the costs due to poor coal quality, and to slagging and fouling in particular, are considerable. US coal-fired capacity represents about one third of the world total, so if the possible savings estimated there are typical, then worldwide the savings from reductions in costs due to slagging and fouling would be in the region of US$1000–1500 million/year. They are likely to be at or above the upper end of this range, because of the proportion of low-grade (high ash-content, low heating- value) coals used in parts of Eastern Europe and in China and India. In an extensive study of large boilers in the UK and USA, out of a total of 58 units of over 300 MWe, 15 were reported with frequent slagging problems and 9 with frequent fouling. 22 boilers had occasional slagging, and 11 occasional fouling problems .A well documented example of deposition problems is that at Kreil in South Africa, where severe slagging developed on the walls of a newly commissioned 500 MWe, horizontally opposed-fired boiler. To overcome the difficulties, a major redesign of mill operation, burner location, and flame recirculation pattern and economiser tube area was required. The effect was to reduce the flame temperature, which meant that the ash deposits were less strongly attached to the walls. The cost of transporting coal from the mine to the end user accounts for a significant part of the price of internationally traded coal. For example, in the early 1990s inland transport charges on steam coal exported to Europe ranged from around 12% of the delivered cost insurance and freight (cif) price from Colombia to 36% for the United States. For coking coal, inland transport charges ranged from 24% for Australian coal to 33% for US coal. Fire is one of greatest hazards facing the industry. There are two principal causes: the mechanical failure of equipment, and the spontaneous combustion of naturally occurring coal and carbonaceous materials. Since mechanical fires are usually much simpler to contain, by far the greater proportion of incidents involving uncontrolled burning result from spontaneous combustion. There are four main areas of coal production and utilization in which uncontrolled burning can be of major concern: mining, transport, storage and waste disposal. The increasing international trade in both metallurgical and steam coal has led to renewed interest in the potential for spontaneous combustion to occur during transport, particularly by bulk carrier. This problem is likely to become greater in the future as the tonnage of lower-rank (sub-bituminous) coals transported by both rail and sea increases. Indeed, the spontaneous combustion tendency exhibited by some coals, such as those found in Botswana, for example, has precluded their widespread development for this very reason. Heightened competition for the coal resources will impact the conventional trading systems of coal and thus the quality. The ownership pattern in the resources and trade is slowly changing in the coal sector, worldwide. Public ownership is giving way to the private ownership. The dominance of West European and North American trading houses are being challenged by the corporations from the nations like Brazil, Russia, India and China and many others of Southern America. This is bound to alter the coal quality and its valuation options.    The issues, problems and technology needs to obtain coal combustion quality are somewhat known though the science needs a lot of development and engagement from the scientists. What, however, largely missing in the technical documents are the issues of management and organization. There is yet a big question mark whether the control tools, like statistical quality control and six sigma, which are popular in the manufacturing industry, can be used in respect of coal. To dismiss their uses as impossible will be foolhardy. But surmise to say that they can be readily used forgoing the peculiarity of the minerals will be premature. They require refinement and attributions for proper use .They, however, have great potential and also great necessity since the value per price is becoming more and more important in matters of coal trade. The book features all of the above aspects and many more so as to capture the state of the art of coal combustion quality at the mine, power, steel and cement plants. Arguably, this is the first book of its kind where a unification of the requirements of different plants producing and using coal is defined. It provides both technical and managerial aspects of coal quality assurance and deliverance. 

 ( Copyright author.Copying illegtal and please do not encourage copying. )

Chapter Contents

A New Book!!! First of its Kind.

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