Reducing NOx emission from a coal-fired boiler based on regression and optimization

NO_x emission from coal combustion poses terrible threat to the surrounding environment. In order to mitigate NO_x emission for coal combustion of a coal-fired boiler, a nonlinear regression model based on support vector regression (SVR) was employed to build a relationship between NO_x emissions and operating parameters of the case boiler. Then, an optimization tool based on simulated annealing (SA) was utilized to regulating the combustion parameters of the case boiler aiming to achieve low NO_x emission. The six levels of secondary air velocities and four levels of primary air velocities were chosen as design variables. Remarkable good results were obtained when SA was used to optimize NO_x emissions of this boiler, supporting its applicability for the development of an advanced on-line and real-time low NO_x emissions combustion optimization software package in modern power plants.