Pressurised flash drying of Yallourn lignite

A previously developed 1D model of lignite drying for pulverised lignite feeding into a conventional pulverised fuel boiler during the coal milling process is applied to lignite in an entrained flow configuration at elevated pressure. A combustor fired with diesel and air was used to produce a flue gas at 800 °C and 10 atm to flash dry Yallourn lignite at a nominal feed rate of 725 kg/h along a 50 m duct. A coal feeder arrangement was also developed which provides a simple positive feeding device for feeding against a back pressure. The feeder takes as an input coal which is nominally <50 mm and discharges it as a finely divided product with a mean particle size of approximately 1.0–1.5 mm. The comparison between model predictions and measured temperature profiles for the flue gas and final moisture content of the dried coal product showed excellent agreement. Coal moisture was reduced from 67 wt% to between 30 and 40 wt%, depending upon on the coal feed rate and particle size. The small variation in the final outlet temperature observed between the model and experimental results is due to heat losses from the exposed duct work to the environment.