Re: Coal Burning Power Plant.

[Harald Weiss <weiss@ki.comcity.de>]

Eric Denison schrieb:
> ... Your calculation seems to assume that both the unburned coal
> and the remaining ash are pure carbon.  However, a measurable fraction of
> the total coal mass will consist of impurities such as sulfur (responsible
> for the sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid consitiuents of the stack gas) and
> daughter products from the uranium and thorium decay series.  ...  I'm 
> guessing that the ash consists of a mish-mash of
> partially-oxidized carbon species and the solid combustion products from
> the impurities.  

AFAIK the ash contains virtually no carbon and the contents of sulfur in
coal ranges up to 3 % in lowest quality coals. The large difference
between coal mass and CO2-yield is probably due to water and
hydrogenated carbon. Note that we used to produce industry gas for
heating and lighting by degasifying coal (heating the volatile
substances out of it) similar to the process of making charcoal out of
wood.

Sorry, Melissa, I know this is off-topic.

Harald

--
Harald Weiss              weiss@ki.comcity.de
Preetzer Strasse 263, D-24147 Kiel, Germany
..

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