Historical Overview of Using Fluidized-Bed Technology for Oil Shale Combustion in Estonia

A. Martins

《Oil Shale》 29卷1期 (2012/03) Pp. 85-99

並列摘要

The use of oil shale as a fuel in Estonian Power Plants started at the beginning of the 20th century (e.g. Tallinn Power Plant 1923, Püssi Power Plant 1937). For combusting lump oil shale grate-firing technology was used. The limitations of grate-firing technology forced to search for or to create better combustion technologies. In these years the pulverized-firing combustion technology was already successfully used for coal combustion. Estonia was the first country to implement the oil shale pulverized-firing combustion technology in the new Kohtla-Järve Power Plant (in operation since January 1949). Almost at the same time in the Institute of Industrial Problems (IIP) of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR (later the Institute of Termophysics and Elektrophysics (ITEF)) and then the Estonian Energy Research Institute (EERI) the experimental and theoretical research of oil shale combustion in fluidized bed was started. In 1948 Dr. Sc. Hans Truu, who was the vice-director of IIP and the head of the Department of Furnaces (later the Department of Combustion Processes (DCP)) introduced the subject of fluidized-bed combustion technology in Estonia. During more than fifty years the fluidized-bed combustion of several oil shales (from Estonia and Syria, Morocco and Volga basin), other fuels (Estonian oil shale semicoke, dictyonema argillite, wood, peat, coal) and their mixtures (Estonian oil shale with semicoke, oil shale with dictyonema argillite, oil shale with coal, wood with peat) was studied along with other technologies (e.g. pulverized-firing of oil shale) up until the incorporation of EERI into Tallinn University of Technology in 2004. During this fifty years eleven scientific theses were defended (seven of them dealing with fluidized-bed combustion technology) and several projects implemented by the scientists of the DCP of the EERI. This article gives a short overview of using fluidized-bed technology for oil shale combustion, studied in IIP (ITEF and EERI).