Packed column with wet scrubber for boiler exhaust purification

Abstract

Diesel and Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) emit Sulphur and Nitrogen Oxides when combusted in boilers. Industrial boilers burn large amounts of fuel for steam generation. It has become essential to control these gas emissions from boilers due to sensitivity to the environment. Packed column is a technology used for Gas absorption process and distillation process in industrial applications. This research mainly targets on utilizing packed column gas absorption for purification of Exhaust gas in HFO Boiler exhaust. Industrially available economical packing materials cannot withstand high temperature flue gas exiting a boiler. The discussed solution used a combination of a packed column and a wet scrubber to achieve the optimum performance and cost of packed column absorber. Cooling effect created by the scrubber made it possible to use an economical packing material where the packed bed operated at 90 °C temperature.