Table Of ContentCOMBUSTION AND PRE-COMBUSTION
CONTROL METHODS TO MINIMIZE EMISSIONS
FROM MODULAR INCINERATORS
By
JOHN CHARLES WAGNER
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT !
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY j
\
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA '
1992
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OF FLORIDA
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To my parents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank Donald Clauson, Joseph Blake,
Xie-Qi Ma, David Roskein, Britta Schmidt, and Jason Weaver
for stack sampling and analysis; Henk van Ravenswaay for
construction of the biomass feeder; Kaifa Awuma for HCl
analysis; Jamie Forester for drawing the original incinerator
circuitry; Mahadevan Sadanandan for kinetics code work;
Michael Mahon for construction of the HCl continuous emission
monitor; Scott Quarmby and Robert Driskell for their
electrical engineering expertise; Donald Adams for setting up
the continuous emissions monitor sampling system; Jonathan
Carter, Chris Jeselson, Todd Yurchisin, Ronald Storer,
William Calhoun, Thomas Cherry, Song Mu, Wilfred Schnell,
Rodnie Barbosa, and others who helped in some way, even if it
was just feeding garbage; Craig Saltiel for getting the
kinetics code operational again; Charles Schmidt for VOST
analysis; Bruce Green for refurbishing and maintaining the
incinerator and helping install the control system; the
Tennessee Valley Authority, Florida Governor's Energy Office,
New River Waste Association, Florida Department of
Environmental Regulation, Mick A. Naulin Foundation, Gatorade
Fund, Supelco, Tacachale, and University of Florida for
project funding; and especially Alex Green, whose advice,
encouragement, and support made this all possible.
Ill
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
LIST OF TABLES vi
LIST OF FIGURES viii
ABSTRACT X
CHAPTERS
INTRODUCTION
1 1
Combustion Fundamentals 3
State of the Art in Incineration 12
Some Combustion Strategies 15
The Need For a New Combustion Control System 19
Development of a New Combustion Control Strategy .... 20
2 INCINERATOR SYSTEM 24
Background 24
Incinerator Hardware 26
Incinerator Operation 30
Original Control System 31
3 INSTRUMENTATION 34
Sensors, Monitors, and Sampling Systems 34
Operations 40
4 REVIEW OF DATA FROM THREE YEARS OF TESTING 43
CCTL Trial Burn Data 44
Carbon Monoxide Data 47
Particulate Data 51
Volatile Organic Compound Data 53
Summary of Significant Relations 57
5 KINETIC MODELLING 58
Inputs to the Code 64
Waste Composition 65
Pyrolysis Steps 67
Results from the Kinetics Code 68
Conclusions from the Kinetics Code 75
iv
6 EFFECT OF CHLORINATED INPUT ON CHLORINATED ORGANIC
COMPOUND EMISSIONS 77
PVC HCl and VOST Data from CCTL 79
, ,
Review of Statistical Procedures 82
Effect of Chlorine Input on HCl Emissions 87
Review of HCl and VOST Data 89
Conclusions from the Chlorinated Data Review 118
7 THE NEW COMBUSTION CONTROL SYSTEM 120
The Combustion Control Strategy 120
Implementation of the New Combustion Control
Strategy 121
Control System Components 123
The Control System Program 131
8 EXPERIMENTS WITH OLD AND NEW CONTROL SYSTEMS 143
Test Firings 143
Experimental Firings 148
9 DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 159
Specific Results 160
Recommendations for Future Work 167
General Projections to Other Systems 171
Final Summary 173
APPENDICES
A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL CONTROL SYSTEM .174
B DETAILS ON THE INSTRUMENTATION 184
C DATA CALCULATIONS 186
D VOST EMISSIONS 191
E KINETICS CODE PROGRAM LISTING 193
F KINETICS CODE INPUT FILE 198
G TEMPERATURE-TIME PROFILE CALCULATIONS 201
H BASE CASE KINETICS CODE OUTPUT 204
I ADDITIONAL DETAILS ON THE CONTROL SYSTEM 209
J ADDITIONAL DETAILS ON THE CONTROL COMPUTER PROGRAM ..225
REFERENCES 227
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 239
LIST OF TABLES
3-1 Typical Protocol for Experimental Burns 42
4-1 Results of Measurements Taken During NHW-Only
Experimental Burns from 08-31-89 to 08-10-91 46
4-2 Results of Method 5 Particulate Measurements Taken
During NHW-Only Experimental Burns from 09-27-88
to 08-03-89 46
4-3 Linear Regression Results from CO Data Review 49
4-4 Linear Regression Results from Particulate Data
Review 51
4-5 Linear Regression Results from VOST Data Review 55
5-1 Cottage Waste Characterization of 02-24-90 66
5-2 Kinetic Code Results 72
6-1 CCTL PVC and HCl Test Data 80
6-2 Hydrogen Chloride, Temperature, Carbon Monoxide, and
Volatile Organic Compound Data Used for Linear
Regression and Nonlinear Analyses 81
6-3 Critical Values of t, F, and R2 at the 5%
Significance Level 85
6-4 Results of Linear Regression of VOST Data 90
6-5 Results of Quadratic and Higher Power Regressions of
CCTL VOST data 96
6-6 Results of Logarithmic and Exponential Regressions
of CCTL VOST data 98
6-7 Results of Fits to Linearized Versions of Nonlinear
Functions 101
6-8 Parameters for Nonlinear Equation Fits 105
6-9 Results of Cross-product Regression of CCTL VOST
Data 113
VI
6-10 Results of Regressions with Other Compounds 117
8-1 Protocol for Control System Experimental Burns 150
8-2 VOST Results for Latest Samples, Non-Blank Corrected
and Blank Corrected 156
Vll
LIST OF FIGURES
1-1 Effect of theoretical air on temperature for burning
a typical 4500 BTU/lb waste 17
1-2 Primary chamber temperature for the 03-21-91 CCTL
burn 21
1-3 Carbon monoxide levels during 11-23-91 burn 21
2-1 Incinerator system layout 27
2-2 Functional schematic of original CCTL incinerator
control circuitry 32
3-1 Incinerator instrumentation layout 35
4-1 Quadratic fit of CCTL carbon monoxide data to
primary combustion chamber temperature 50
4-2 Carbon monoxide data fitted with a quadratic
function of PCC temperature and a linear function
of oxygen concentration 50
4-3 Carbon monoxide data fitted with a quadratic
function of PCC temperature and a linear function
of carbon dioxide concentration 50
4-4 Particulate emissions compared to oxygen
concentration 52
4-5 Particulate emissions data compared to natural gas
input 52
4-6 Vost emissions compared to waste feed rate 56
4-7 Vost emissions compared to PCC temperature and waste
feed rate and plotted against temperature 56
5-1 Kinetics code program flowchart 61
5-2 Temperature-time history for CCTL incinerator 63
5-3 Kinetic aromatic and chlorination sequences 69
5-4 Base case (Run 30) kinetics code output 71
viix
6-1 HCl emissions compared to added chlorine input with
both HCl and added CI normalized to a 400-lb/hr
waste feed rate 88
6-2 Comparison of DCB emissions to HCl emissions with
and without outlying DCB data point 94
6-3 Replacement of the orthogonal function H(t;^,p) with
a Gaussian function J(t;u,s) 109
7-1 On/off and alarm control system circuitry 125
7-2 Natural gas piping arrangements 127
7-3 Natural gas flow rate measurement orifice meter 129
7-4 Control program overall flowchart 133
7-5 Manual data entry screen 135
7-6 Control computer program data screen 135
7-7 Incinerator warm up logic 138
7-8 Temperature maintaining logic 139
7-9 Ram feeding logic 142
8-1 CEM data from 04-08-92 burn 154
8-2 Temperature and gas data from 04-08-92 burn 154
8-3 CEM data from 04-15-92 burn 157
8-4 Temperature and gas data from 04-15-92 burn 157
A-1 Original incinerator control system circuitry 175
A-2 Original biomass control subsystem 180
A-3 Original stoker control circuitry 181
I-l Power supply board with transformer 214
1-2 Original modmotor circuitry 216
1-3 Modmotor modification and control circuitry 218
1-4 Override relays configuration 221
1-5 Stoker control circuitry with override relay 222
IX
