ERC's Sarunac receives patent,makes national presentations

Nenad Sarunac, principal research engineer and associate director of the Energy Research Center, and Rick Mancini of the New York State Electric and Gas Corp. have received a U.S. patent for a combustion-enhancing air foil.

The device, whose development was supported by grants from NYSEG and the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority, improves combustion and efficiency of stoker-fired boilers by 5 to 8 percent.

In related news, Sarunac gave two technical presentations at the recent 2003 EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) Heat Rate Improvement Conference in Birmingham, Ala.

The first presentation, titled "Coal Drying Improves Performance and Reduces Emissions," by Sarunac, ERC director Edward Levy and two colleagues at Great River Co., described a Rankine cycle-improvement process that uses fluidized bed dryer and waste heat to remove moisture from low-rank coals. The process is expected to improve performance of coal-fired power plants by 2 to 5 percent. 

The second presentation, "Sootblowing Optimization in Coal-Fired Utility Boilers," by Sarunac and ERC research scientists Carlos Romero and Harun Bilirgen, described ERC's research in sootblowing optimization and intelligent sootblowing and provided experience from field tests.

Sarunac also presented two technical papers and chaired sessions on power-plant operations and on controls at the U.S. Department of Energy's 2003 International Coal Utilization Conference held recently in Clearwater, Fla.

The first paper, titled "Sensor and Control Challenges for Improved Combustion Control, Performance and Reduced Power Plant Emissions," by Sarunac and Romero, gave a state-of-the-art review of power plant controls and associated sensors and proposed an advanced combustion control scheme for fossil-fired boilers that would significantly reduce emissions and improve performance.

The second paper, "Combined Optimization for NOx Emissions, Unit Heat Rate, and Slagging Control with Coal-Fired Boilers," discussed the practical details of ERC's comprehensive approach to combustion optimization, and provided results of field studies.

The conference's organizers have invited Sarunac to be a session chairman at the 2004 conference.

Sarunac, Romero and Bilirgen also wrote a paper titled "Sootblowing Optimization Helps Reduce Emissions from Coal-Fired Utility Boilers" for the 2003 Combined Power Plant Air Pollutant Control Mega Symposium in Washington, D.C., which was sponsored by DOE, EPRI, the National Energy Technology Laboratory and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The paper, titled "Sootblowing Optimization Helps Reduce Emissions from Coal-Fired Utility Boilers," was presented by ERC research engineer John Sale. It discussed how the optimal removal of slag and fouling deposits benefits the performance, emissions and operability of coal-fired power plants.