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Emission Characteristics of Particulate Matter from Coal-Fired Power Units with Different Load Conditions

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Abstract

As an important source of electricity production in China, coal-fired power boiler still emits high concentrations of pollutants such as particulate matter (PM) due to large amounts of flue gas. In this study, filterable and condensable PM (CPM) were sampled in three coal-fired units. In particular, the effects of unit load and flue gas temperatures on organic/inorganic components of CPM were investigated. The emission concentration of total PM reached the lowest at the highest load of the coal-fired unit. CPM, especially the organic components in it, accounted for a high proportion of the total particulates emitted from three units. The representative organic components hydrocarbons and esters accounted for more than 40% of CPM from coal combustion, while the representative inorganic component SO42− had the highest emission concentration. The emission concentration of representative organic components and most inorganic components in CPM was lowest when the temperature of coal-fired flue gas was lowest. It was noted that the effect of operating load and flue gas temperature on the distribution of organic compounds in CPM is limited when raw coal properties are similar.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB0605200).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Institute for Thermal Power Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Yujia Wu, Zhenyao Xu, Siqi Liu, Minghui Tang & Shengyong Lu

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  1. Yujia Wu
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Correspondence to Shengyong Lu.

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Wu, Y., Xu, Z., Liu, S. et al. Emission Characteristics of Particulate Matter from Coal-Fired Power Units with Different Load Conditions. Water Air Soil Pollut 233, 447 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-022-05919-9

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