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Airborne process--will it fly? A commercial demonstration installation of the Airborne Process--a coal-plant multi pollutant control technology based on sodium bicarbonate injection--is planned at LG&E''s Ghent plant.

Article Excerpt
Sodium bicarbonate (NaHC[O.sub.3]) dry sorbent injection combined with wet scrubbing has the potential to be a highly effective process for removing S[O.sub.2], S[O.sub.3], N[O.sub.x] and heavy metal compounds from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants, with application in the near term to existing and new stations.

However, as noted in a paper by M Mortson and F Owens presented to the recent EPRI-DOE-EPA Mega Symposium*, the process has three serious drawbacks:

* the sodium bicarbonate cost is excessive;

* the product of the sodium bicarbonate S[O.sub.x] reaction (sodium sulphate) has limited economic value;

* sodium sulphate disposal is expensive and poses a significant environmental problem.

To address these shortcomings, Airborne Pollution Control of Calgary, Canada, is developing a sodium-bicarbonate-based multi-pollutant control flow scheme for power stations which includes regeneration of the sodium sulphate back into sodium bicarbonate and production of fertiliser co-product.

Airborne's patented regeneration process aims to eliminate the financial and disposal barriers and should allow sodium bicarbonate scrubbing to realise its potential as a highly effective scrubber process.

To evaluate the S[O.sub.x] and N[O.sub.x] reduction potential of the process, a series of bench and small (0.3 MW) vertical combustor tests was completed at the Canmet Energy Technology Center. Building on this work, further testing is now getting underway at Airborne's 5 MW facility at the Ghent generation station, Carollton, KY, which is owned by LG&E Energy Corporation's Kentucky Utilities Company.

Earlier this year, a commercial demonstration of the Airborne Process, also at Ghent, was one of the eight projects selected in round 1 of the Bush administration's Clean Coal Power Initiative (MPS, April 2003).

Canmet research

The...