Objective
The overall objective of this project is to develop a family of cohesivity modifying flue gas conditioning agents that can be commercialized to provide utilities with a cost-effective means of complying with particulate emission and opacity regulations. Improving the cohesivity and agglomeration of flyash particles via flue gas conditioning is a proven means of increasing the collection efficiency of an electrostatic precipitator (ESP). However, a new class of additives is needed because currently available agglomerating aids on the market require the storage and handling of large quantities of ammonia, which under recent legislation has been classified as extremely hazardous and necessitates extensive risk assessment and emergency response plans. There are also operating conditions and coals where the ammonia-based technologies are not as effective and the treated ash treated is difficult to dispose of because of the odor produced by ammonia. Advanced methods for flue gas conditioning may provide the most cost effective means of optimizing the overall collection efficiencies of ESPs in today's deregulated utility market. Such efficiencies are essential for plants to meet the DOE goals of 0.01 lb/MBtu and 99.99% collection efficiency in the particle size 0.1 to 10 microns.

Approach
The primary objective will be achieved through a series of technical tasks that begin in the laboratory, followed by a short "proof of concept" demonstration at a utility plant, optimization of the conditioning technology through the combination of laboratory and full scale evaluation and finally, longer term demonstrations at various sites to prove the viability of the technology over a broad range of applications. The technical tasks are summarized below:

• Task 1. Upgrade Existing Laboratory Test Apparatus: Improve the capability of existing equipment to directly measure cohesivity and tensile strength.
• Task 2. Identify and Evaluate Candidate Cohesivity Enhancement Additives: Perform screening tests to identify the most promising candidate additives, followed by an intensive series of parametric tests to assure the additives meet the requirement in terms of performance, ability to integrate easily with the plant process and cost. The classes of additives to be tested will include various synthetic anionic and cationic polymers.
• Task 3. Demonstrate Performance at Full Scale and Optimize Product: Prepare and install equipment for the demonstration of the most promising additive or additives on at least a portion of a full-scale ESP. This test will confirm anticipated performance and identify properties that cannot be simulated in laboratory tests.
• Task 4. Identify Potential Longer Term Demonstration Sites: To meet the DOE goal that newly developed technology be applicable to a variety of coals and configurations, demonstrations will be conducted at several sites. In this task additional test sites will be identified and contacted.
• Task 5. Conduct Demonstrations to Confirm Performance for Different Coals and Configurations: Additive performance will be evaluated at several different sites. The coals will be representative of types widely used. The two primary groups of interest are Powder River Basin Sub-bituminous and a low sulfur washed eastern bituminous with ash silica-alumina content above 85%. Also of interest is a site that fires a high sulfur bituminous coal with a scrubber-ESP configuration.
• Task 6. Determine Waste Characteristics: Determine the effect of the additive on flyash disposal and reuse properties.
• Task 7. Perform Economic Analysis: Develop the economics of the conditioning technology following EPRI approved techniques, where costs are presented as normalized busbar costs.
• Task 8. Management and Reporting: Define project schedule, milestones and costing for internal project tracking. Prepare and submit DOE required reports.