Invista DBA will be Available to Improve FGD Efficiency Rick Beatty and Gary Hilkert of Invista told a Hot Topic audience Wednesday that the Orange, Texas plant will be starting operations in the first quarter 2011 and will be able to deliver dibasic acid (DBA) to the power market. The meeting started with an overview by McIlvaine pointing out that the PM2.5 ambient rules will force states to require very low emissions of SO2 in order to reduce sulfates. Los Angeles is still struggling to meet the ambient rules even after they eliminated coal-fired power plants and major sources. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a new rule this month which will require refineries and several remaining sources to reduce SO2 to less than 10 tons at a cost of many millions of dollars. Note this is not 10,000,000 tons, or 10,000 tons. It is 10 tons aggregated for all sources. By contrast coal-fired boilers in the rest of the country emit 8.9 million tons. The new South Coast reduction is less than CEMS accuracy when the emissions are 10,000 tons. There is a caveat. If sources cannot buy allowances for less than $50,000/ton, then there is some relief. Welcome to the new world of PM2.5 ambient limits. DBA can substantially improve the efficiency of a limestone SO2 scrubber. In fact it can provide the equivalent of spraying an extra 20 gpm/1000 cfm of limestone slurry. So a power plant with the need to move from 92 to 95 percent SO2 removal can either add 25 percent to the pump energy input or buy an organic chemical. With greenhouse gases being of increasing concern, the increase in energy consumption is critical. DBA can minimize the efficiency reduction due to high chlorides in the recirculating scrubbing liquor. It can provide fuel and limestone purchasing flexibility. There is the potential to add to the biological oxygen demand in the wastewater but zero liquid discharge or biological treatment solves this problem. Most plants have wastewater concerns with or without DBA. DBA may improve HCl removal efficiency. Its function in dissolving the limestone should be equally effective on acid gases other than SO2. Since the Utility MACT will probably limit HCl to 3 ppm, it is likely that scrubber systems will be designed around this parameter. Invista is offering carload quantities of DBA for testing.

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• Invista (Koch)

• Dibasic Acid

• FGD

• Air Quality

• Efficiency

• Webinar Recording