26 research outputs found
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Fundamental Study of Low NOx Combustion Fly Ash Utilization
This study is principally concerned with characterizing the organic part of coal combustion fly ashes. High carbon fly ashes are becoming more common as by-products of low-NOx combustion technology, and there is need to learn more about this fraction of the fly ash. The project team consists of two universities, Brown and Princeton, and an electrical utility, New England Power. A sample suite of over forty fly ashes has been gathered from utilities across the United States, and includes ashes from a coals ranging in rank from bituminous to lignite. The characterizations of these ashes include standard tests (LOI, Foam Index), as well as more detailed characterizations of their surface areas, porosity, extractability and adsorption behavior. The ultimate goal is, by better characterizing the material, to enable broadening the range of applications for coal fly ash re-use beyond the current main market as a pozzolanic agent for concretes. The potential for high carbon-content fly ashes to substitute for activated carbons is receiving particular attention. The work performed to date has already revealed how very different the surfaces of different ashes produced by the same utility can be, with respect to polarity of the residual carbon. This can help explain the large variations in acceptability of these ashes as concrete additives
Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19
Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease
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Char crystalline transformations during coal combustion and their implications for carbon burnout. Semiannual technical progress report, 1 January 1996--1 July 1996
Recent work at Sandia National Laboratories, Imperial College, and the U.K. utility PowerGen, has identified an important mechanism believed to have a large influence on unburned carbon levels from pulverized coal fired boilers. That mechanism is char carbon crystalline rearrangements on subsecond times scales at temperatures of 1800 - 2500 K, which lead to char deactivation in the flame zones of furnaces. The so-called thermal annealing of carbons is a well known phenomenon, but its key role in carbon burnout has only recently been appreciated, and there is a lack of quantitative data in this time/temperature range. In addition, a new fundamental tool has recently become available to study crystalline transformations, namely high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) fringe imaging, which provides a wealth of information on the nature and degree of crystallinity in carbon materials such as coal chars. Motivated by these new developments, this University Coal Research project has been initiated with the following three goals: to determine transient, high-temperature thermal deactivation kinetics as a function of parent coal and temperature history; and to characterize the effect of this thermal treatment on carbon crystalline structure through high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and specialized, quantitative image analysis. Work is currently underway on the following three tasks: (1) experimental technique development; (2) thermal deactivation kinetics; and (3) crystal structure characterization. In this second project period, progress was made on subtasks 1 and 3, in both cases in the areas of equipment and technique development. These activities are discussed in detail in this report
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Char crystalline transformations during coal combustion and their implications for carbon burnout. Semiannual technical progress report, July 1, 1996--January 1, 1997
This paper reports on research concerned with coal combustion and the crystal transformations of coal chars. Goals were to: determine transient high-temperature deactivation kinetics as a function of parent coal; and to characterize the effect of thermal treatments on the carbon crystal structure
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Char crystalline transformations during coal combustion and their implications for carbon burnout
Residual, or unburned carbon in fly ash affects many aspects of power plant performance and economy including boiler efficiency, electrostatic precipitator operation, and ash as a salable byproduct. There is a large concern in industry on the unburned carbon problem due to a variety of factors, including low-NOx combustion system and internationalization of the coal market. In recent work, it has been found that residual carbon extracted from fly ash is much less reactive than the laboratory chars on which the current kinetics are based. It has been suggested that thermal deactivation at the peak temperature in combustion is a likely phenomenon and that the structural ordering is one key mechanism. The general phenomenon of carbon thermal annealing is well known, but there is a critical need for more data on the temperature and time scale of interest to combustion. In addition, high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) fringe imaging, which provides a wealth of information on the nature and degree of crystallinity in carbon materials such as coal chars, has become available. Motivated by these new developments, this University Coal Research project has been initiated with the following goals: (1) To determine transient, high-temperature, thermal deactivation kinetics as a function of parent coal and temperature history. (2) To characterize the effect of the thermal treatment on carbon crystalline structure through high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and specialized, quantitative image analysis
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Fundamental study of low-NOx combustion fly ash utilization. Semiannual report, May 1, 1998--October 31, 1998
The objective of the current work was to investigate the oxidation reactivity of fly ash carbons, using thermogravimetric analysis techniques. Good measures of the oxidation reactivity of fly ash carbon were the critical temperature (T{sub cr}) and the late burnout temperature (T{sub late}). The lower the critical temperature of the fly ash carbon, the more reactive the sample. By contrast, the higher T{sub late}, the less reactive the fly ash carbon. The difference between T{sub cr} and T{sub late} provided information about the reactivity distribution and was mainly dependent on fly ash carbon content (Loss-On-Ignition (LOI)). Fly ash carbons having different origins, some from lower rank coals and some from higher rank coals had slightly different reactivities. Class C fly ash carbons from low rank coals were more reactive than the typical class F fly ash carbons from higher rank coals. The reactivity parameters did not, however, provide any additional ability to predict the suitability of a given ash for use in concrete
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Comparison of biomass and coal char reactivities
Char combustion is typically the rate limiting step during the combustion of solid fuels. The magnitude and variation of char reactivity during combustion are, therefore, of primary concern when comparing solid fuels such as coal and biomass. In an effort to evaluate biomass` potential as a sustainable and renewable energy source, the reactivities of both biomass and coal chars were compared using Sandia`s Captive Particle Imaging (CPI) apparatus. This paper summarizes the experimental approach used to determine biomass and coal reactivities and presents results from CPT experiments. The reactivity of six types of char particles, two high-rank coal chars, two low-rank coal chars, and two biomass chars, were investigated using the CPT apparatus. Results indicate that both of the high-rank coal chars have relatively low reactivities when compared with the higher reactivities measured for the low-rank coal and the biomass chars. In addition, extinction behavior of the chars support related investigations that suggest carbonaceous structural ordering is an important consideration in understanding particle reactivity as a function of extent of burnout. High-rank coal chars were found to have highly ordered carbon structures, where as, both low-rank coal and biomass chars were found to have highly disordered carbon structures
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Coal Combustion Science
The objective of this activity is to support the Office of Fossil Energy in executing research on coal combustion science. This activity consists of basic research on coal combustion that supports both the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center Direct Utilization Advanced Research and Technology Development Program, and the International Energy Agency Coal Combustion Science Project. Specific tasks for this activity include: (1) coal devolatilization - the objective of this risk is to characterize the physical and chemical processes that constitute the early devolatilization phase of coal combustion as a function of coal type, heating rate, particle size and temperature, and gas phase temperature and oxidizer concentration; (2) coal char combustion -the objective of this task is to characterize the physical and chemical processes involved during coal char combustion as a function of coal type, particle size and temperature, and gas phase temperature and oxygen concentration; (3) fate of mineral matter during coal combustion - the objective of this task is to establish a quantitative understanding of the mechanisms and rates of transformation, fragmentation, and deposition of mineral matter in coal combustion environments as a function of coal type, particle size and temperature, the initial forms and distribution of mineral species in the unreacted coal, and the local gas temperature and composition