IT TAKES GREAT

ENGINEERING TO MAKE
THINGS THIS SMALL.
( CHARCOAL BRIQUETTES)
50 m
Loesche vertical roller mills deliver cutting-edge throughput rates and operating efficiency for the
cement, iron&steel, energy and minerals industries. We set benchmarks with the performance
and productivity of our machinery and the quality of our service.
Take a closer look at: www.loesche.com
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OFTEN
UNDERRATED
Tobias Korz, Loesche GmbH, Germany,
considers coal preparation in
gasication plants.
he coal gasication industry has
experienced enormous growth over the
last fewyears, and consequently the
demand for coal grinding and drying
has also increased. However, coal
preparation has often been neglected in
comparison to the importance given to
the gasifying method, even though it is
an integral part of a gasication plant.
The grinding and drying process always
stands at the very beginning of the coal
gasication process and the entire
process is inuenced by the quality of
the feedstock produced in this rst step.
In 1990, Loesche GmbHsupplied the
rst coal grinding plant for an IGCC
power plant in Buggenum, the
Netherlands, with three LM26.3 D
4-roller Loesche Mill
in modular design with
LSKS classifier
LOE_09_092_OG_Print_World_Coal.indd 5-Abs1:1 17.06.2009 16:21:10 Uhr
WorldCoal Reprinted from March2009 www.worldcoal.com
Figure 2. Loesche roller module.
Figure 1. IGCC plant in Buggenum, Netherlands.
(Figure 1). The customer was Demkolec B.V., which
was founded by the Association for Electricity
Industry of the Netherlands to focus on the
execution of this IGCCpower plant. The plant is
nowowned by Nuon, a Dutch energy company,
which bought it in 2001.
The scope of supply included the complete
equipment fromrawmaterial feed to downstreamof
the bag lter, including the grinding mills, all the
necessary bunkers, ducts, aps, electrical drives and
insulation material.
The development of coal mills
The development of Loesche coal mills began with
two-roller mills and progressed to three and then to
at least four-roller mills. Due to the fact that the
industry was asking for even higher throughputs, the
company designed a LM43.4 Das the worlds
biggest coal mill, which successfully went into
operation in two cement plants in India inAugust
2008. Even though this four-roller coal mill was a
newdevelopment, the required throughput was
reached within a fewdays. This type of mill is able to
WorldCoal www.worldcoal.com Reprinted from March2009
produce up to 120 tph of pulverised coal
for gasication purposes. This
production rate is sufcient to feed one
2000 tpd gasier train with only one mill.
As the industry is asking for even
bigger mills than the LM43.4 D, Loesche
is able to design themwithout the need
for a long developmental period, due to
the modular system of Loesche mills.
Figure 2 shows a module consisting of a
roller with rocker arm, a pedestal and
complete hydro-pneumatic spring unit.
The modular structure of large roller
grinding mills enables the use of the
same components in different mill sizes.
The principle behind this structure was
patented in the 1960s and is employed
for coal grinding mills and mills in the
cement and industrial minerals industry.
Two, three, four or even six grinding
roller congurations for a single grinding
table can be realised. This concept, which
has already been successfully established
in the cement industry by using one raw
material mill per cement kiln, has also
being realised for coal grinding.
The particular value of a four-roller
mill is that operation can be maintained
even with only one pair of rollers. In
case of damage to one grinding roller,
one pair of rollers, linked in one
hydraulic system, could be lifted up, and
grinding can be continued with the
remaining rollers making up 60%of the
required capacity (Figure 3). This means
high availability and considerable
exibility with regard to the machines
control behaviour. This exibility would
be enhanced further by a six-roller coal
mill, e.g. an LM53.6 Dwith 5.3 m
diameter grinding table. In the case of a
failure of a grinding roller the possible
capacity would be 80%of normal
capacity (Figure 4).
This in-built redundancy is an
opportunity to save investment costs as
it means that the building of a complete
stand-by plant is not required. This is an
important development as gasication
projects all over the world are postponed
or even cancelled due to high CAPEX
costs by reason of overdrawn
redundancy.
The present state-of-the-art technology
of gasiers with a capacity of 3000 tpd
could be fed with only one six-roller mill.
The demands of the gasication industry
have led Loesche to realise throughputs
with more than 180 tph. The issue of
variability is of enormous importance for
coal mills, particularly with regards to the
cement industry and, recently, the
gasication industry. In recent years,
Loesches coal mill has undergone
constant development in order to meet
the requirements. The combination of
standard features with more unusual
design characteristics within the mill
enables the economic and fail-safe
preparation of hard coals, lignites and
petcokes.
Plant layout and safety
aspects
Figure 5 shows a typical owsheet for a
coal gasication plant with the
possibility of feeding the mill with
different types of material beside coal. It
is a self-inert grinding plant, meaning
that inert recirculated gases occur in the
installation systemitself. The companys
hot gas generator, an intrinsic part of the
grinding plant, provides the required
process heat.
The description belowindicates and
explains the main control loops:
The rawcoal feed is controlled by a
level measuring systemof the coal
dust silo and by mill differential
pressure. The materials are fed in
a certain mixture, with the main
material content being rawcoal.
The gas volume at the mill outlet
must be constant in order to
achieve perfect drying and constant
fineness of the product.
The pressure at the mill inlet has to
be kept constant by means of the
exhaust air regulation flap.
Dust control in the circulation
gas ducting is necessary to give a
warning in case of filter leakages
and to shut off the plant in case of
too high dust content in the waste
gases.
The temperature at the mill outlet
must be controlled and regulated
to avoid a temperature exceeding
120C at filter inlet. The oxygen
content at the filter outlet
needs to be controlled and kept
below 12%, normal operation
approximately 10%.
The safety of coal grinding plants
must be ensured in all operating
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Figure 3. Part load conditions of four-roller mill.
Figure 4. Part load conditions of six-roller mill.
WorldCoal Reprinted from March2009 www.worldcoal.com
situations. Safety aspects are laid down
in regulations and ordinances.
Nowadays, inert and pneumatically-
operated grinding plants can be
designed with incorporated operational
safety characteristics. The operator
decides on the ultimate plant layout.
Solid fuels can, under certain
circumstances, combust, ash ignite or
explode as a result of the following
conditions:
An increased oxygen content
(>12%) in the process room.
The presence of ignition sources.
The presence of large quantities of
volatile material.
An increased carbon monoxide
content in the process air.
The fineness of the grinding
material.
The temperature of the material
and process air.
As a result, there is a higher demand
for effective safety measures. These
include the following:
An inert operating status with
a maximumoxygen content of
approximately 10%in damp
process gas.
Pressure-shock resistant structure
(only some parts of the plant).
Oxygen monitoring.
Carbon monoxide monitoring (e.g.
to detect smouldering when the
grinding mill is stationary).
Quick-closure gate valves to isolate
plant components.
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Avoidance of ignition sources (e.g.
stop buffers in the mill preventing
metal-to-metal contact).
Avoidance of deposit areas and
coal dust deposits for a certain
period of time.
Plant safety design in compliance
with local regulations.
Due to the inert process gases, special
explosion pressure relief systems are not
necessary, which helps provide
additional costs savings.
Today, safety and monitoring
measures are automated, monitored and
remotely controlled through simple
systems of control consoles supported
by process computers.
Benets
The plant conguration for a coal dry
grinding plant for the gasication
industry is the same as in ironworks. In
this industry, coal is injected into the
blast furnace in a procedure called
Pulverised Coal Injection (PCI). Alarge
part of the coke needed for the iron
making process can be substituted
with pulverised coal, which is much
cheaper. Therefore the need for PCI is
very high due to the quick return on
investment.
As Loesche sold more than 55 coal
mills for PCI, the expertise and
experience for coal dry grinding
purposes is existent and available. These
mills are located all over the world,
reaching throughputs from20 tph up to
100 tph. Since interest in PCI escalated in
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the 1980s, the company has become one
of the market leaders in selling coal mills
to this industry.
There are a number of concerns
within the industry over availability
problems in such large, pressure-
resistant coal mills with respect to plant
parts such as fans, bag lters and, if
required, combustion systems, where
there is 100%dependence on only one
machine. However, these can be
addressed as follows:
Fail-safe machines of a similar size
have been in use in the cement
industry for many years. Identical
components are used within the
coal industry.
Two-roller or four-roller operation
is possible: in this mode the mill is
able to operate with 60%or 80%of
desired capacity, respectively.
High availability of 94 98%is
guaranteed, depending on the total
plant design.
The bag filter plants have mature
and reliable safety technology, even
in the case of larger units.
The economic advantages of a larger
coal grinding plant are evident, as the
cost of spare parts storage and labour
costs can be reduced considerably.
Furthermore, the level of investment
costs necessary for construction and
electrical equipment are more attractive.
In the future, this concept could prove to
be interesting for a number of different
branches of industry, such as power
plants, gasication plants and the iron
industry.
Conclusion
The clients need is to have the highest
availability and the highest capacities
with the lowest investment costs. These
costs can only be reduced through
economies of scale. The use of roller
modules, tested in practice in four-roller
mills, made it possible to rule out
potential development risk to
dynamically loaded components. It is
possible to nd a tailored grinding
technology for any output level or fuel.
This guarantees economic preparation
and high availability due to the specic
design principles.
Further reading
SALEWSKI, G., Grinding: the cutting
edge, World Coal, (July 2001).
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Figure 5. Flow sheet of grinding circuit for coal gasication.
LOE_09_092_OG_Print_World_Coal.indd Abs1:2-Abs1:4 17.06.2009 16:21:49 Uhr