Fuel in Thermal Power Plant Page 1 of 1

FUEL OF THERMAL POWER PLANTS – ANALYSIS

OF COAL
Article by Ricky (26,457 pts )
Edited & published by Haresh Khemani (30,655 pts ) on Jan 22, 2009

Related Guides: Fuel

Since coal is one of the most widely used fuels in thermal power plants all over the globe, it makes sense to
know what constituents make up this wonderful fuel. Read on to find out more about this.

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Introduction
As we learnt earlier coal is one of the most widely used fuels in thermal power plants. It is therefore
necessary for anyone interested in thermal power plants to know about the composition of coal and its
various ingredients which have been discussed in the succeeding section.

Proximate Analysis of Coal

Any substance can be analyzed in different ways such as proximate analysis, chemical analysis and so
forth. We will carry out the proximate analysis of coal which gives the different categories of compound
present in the substance. Apart from carbon which is an obvious constituent the other constituents are as
follows.

Ash – this is an undesirable constituent of coal which is contained within the coal in two forms namely fixed
ash and free ash. Fixed ash is inherent in the coal due to the formation process from vegetable matter and it
is not possible to remove it except that it gets separated on burning. The free ash is removable via
processes such as washing and screening though they will not be described in detail here.

Like I said earlier it is undesirable to have ash in the coal but normally different types of coal could have ash
content anywhere between say around 2% to 30% which is an unnecessary burden adding to transportation
costs, lowering of heat value of coal and producing large amounts of corrosive waste which needs to be
disposed off in a proper manner. Another disadvantage is that inside the boiler combustion chamber if the
ash gets subject to very high temperatures it can form clinkers which could choke the passages and
decrease efficiency of the boiler. It is best to use such coal in the powdered form if such a possibility exists.

Hydrocarbons & Gases – coal contains a variety of combustible gases such as hydrogen, methane and
non-combustible gases such as carbon dioxide etc. This volatile content could be as low as 3% or even as
high as nearly 50%. These constituents especially the non-combustible gases are just a waste as far as heat
value of the fuel is concerned and an unnecessary burden which needs to be transported around and stored
without any useful value in return.

Moisture – the moisture content of coal could vary from just over 1% to nearly 30-40% and just like ash it
has two forms – inherent moisture and free moisture. The former is not easily removable as it is a costly
process whilst the latter can be removed by normal drying using slightly heated air. Obviously since coal is
used in the boiler combustion chamber any excess moisture would interfere with the combustion lowering
the actual heat available to generate steam.

There is another method of analyzing coal in terms of its various chemical constituents such as carbon,
hydrogen, sulphur and so forth but that might be taken up in a different set of articles.

http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/mechanical/articles/23146.aspx 4/6/2011