NEA’s solutions accurately interpret your field test data and troubleshoot operational problems in commercial utility boilers. Our approaches range from engineering correlations based on powerful proprietary regression variables, to simple modeling analogs that capture the essential elements, to the most comprehensive chemical reaction mechanisms that depict fuel quality impacts with uncanny accuracy. We find the right solution for your database, technical objectives, time demands, and budget. Whether you need to manage today’s urgent emissions imperatives (NOX, unburned carbon, mercury), or emissions on the horizon (selenium, arsenic, boron), or in-furnace corrosion issues (alkali chlorides, iron sulfides), or SCR poisons (arsenic, phosphorous, calcium, sodium, potassium), or gas cleaning issues (SCR catalyst deactivation, SO3), NEA’s reaction mechanisms point the way toward robust compliance and management strategies for all your company’s fuels and furnace firing configurations.
Utility clients of a leading Japanese OEM had problems with coal deposits within their burners, which could be severe but only with a few coals. The OEM devised a lab test to identify which coals would form deposits. They then hired NEA to identify the mechanistic reasons for the deposits, as a basis to predict which coals would form deposits. NEA related the deposit formation mechanisms to readily available coal properties, and developed a very accurate regression for our client’s database (r2 = 0.94), which ultimately became an effective in-house screening tool.
A major American utility R&D organization wanted a fast and inexpensive method to predict how NOX and LOI emissions would change after a coal switch at commercial electric power plants. They originally intended to use lab tests as the basis for the method, but ultimately decided to use NEA’s FLASHCHAIN® and CBK/E reaction mechanisms instead, as a virtual coal laboratory. The resulting product, called the NOXLOI Predictor™, delivers remarkably accurate predictions for the NOX emissions and unburned carbon from any coal, biomass, pet coke, or fuel blend. It is currently available at more than 80 American utility companies and one Taiwanese company. Learn More.
A Japanese fuel supplier distributes a $500,000 software package that manages all aspects of coal transport, handling, combustion, and emissions for coal-burning utilities. Lab testing had been used to characterize their customers’ coal quality impacts, which is expensive and slow. They replaced two of the five most expensive tests with NEA’s reaction mechanisms, which provide the same information in only a few seconds on a PC.
An American utility company hired NEA to develop an advanced post-processing method for their in-house CFD simulations that can accurately predict LOI, NOX and CO emissions from a full-scale T-fired boiler. NEA’s ChemNet™ post-processing method incorporates PC Coal Lab® and Cantera software into a post-processor that featured a 444-step mechanism for chemistry on soot and in the gas phase, including fuel-nitrogen conversion. Learn More.
A boiler OEM in Japan had problems with excessive NOX emissions whenever slag formed near the burner zone of a full-scale wall-fired furnace. Using complete elementary reaction mechanisms for NOX production, NEA’s simulations connected the substantial increase in NO production to a relatively small increase in flame temperature.
An American utility company hired NEA to use detailed chemistry in simulations of their 1.0 MWt test flame facility to determine the optimal injection configuration for diverse fuels in biomass cofiring. Predicted NOX emissions were within 30 ppm of the measured values for two biomass forms co-fired at three loadings on four diverse coals with no parameter adjustments whatsoever. Learn More.
A major American utility R&D sponsor hired NEA to quantitatively interpret the entire backlog of mercury field tests sponsored by NETL of the U. S. DoE. The database represents about 200 distinct gas cleaning configurations at tens of power stations. This project was the final stage of validation for NEA’s MercuRator™ software package, which predicts the Hg emissions rate for any gas cleaning configuration with any coal or coal blend as accurately as they can be measured. About a dozen utility companies and utility OEMs in the U. S. and Japan are either using the package in-house or using its capabilities on a consulting basis. Learn More.
The United Nations Environment Programme wanted a fast way to estimate Hg emissions from power plants around the world that did not require technical sophistication or detailed engineering specifications. NEA responded with iPOG™, a user-friendly package that has already enabled hundreds of analysts to quickly identify their best Hg control options. Learn More.
NEA developed the chemical conversion components for EPRI’s Waterwall Wastage program, which estimates the likelihood of steam tube corrosion near burners in full-scale furnaces by estimating the sulfide and chloride levels in slags for whole coals and blends.
A boiler manufacturer in Japan was concerned about excessive corrosion in its full-scale PFBC. They hired NEA to develop a computer simulator to identify which coals are likely to have excessive alkali vapor emissions. After the predictions satisfied evaluations against lab-scale test data, NEA delivered a software package that accurately predicted the alkali emissions from the pilot-scale PFBC, and was used to screen coals for the 230 MW Karita PFBC.
A major American utility company sponsored NEA’s development of the SCR Catalyst Model (Learn More), which predicts the performance of full-scale selective catalytic reduction units (SCRs) for simultaneous NO reduction, Hg0 oxidation, and SO2 oxidation and, for the first time, accurately accounts for the impact of catalyst deactivation. Learn More.
NEA published the first computational analysis to identify the factors associated with the re-emission of elemental mercury from wet FGD scrubbers. The analysis first rectified assumptions in the conventional FGD simulation strategy that obscured trace metal transformations, then introduced distinctive expressions for sulfite oxidation and Hg(II) reduction in scrubber solutions. It is now being validated with several datasets from full-scale wet FGDs. Learn More.