Carbon Burn-out Process Information

Above: CBO Plant structure

Carbon Burn-Out (CBO) combusts residual carbon in fly ash, producing a very consistent, low carbon, high-quality pozzolan. The process is continuous and is fueled solely by the residual carbon. Heat is recovered and sent back to the power plant that originally produced the high-carbon fly ash. The CBO process is an improvement on bubbling fluid bed technology.

The CBO process commercialized early in 1999 when the Wateree Carbon Burn-Out plant began operations. Owned by South Carolina Electric and Gas, this full-scale facility met or exceeded its design parameters for ash processed and heat recovered. For more information, please review the Successful Application of Carbon Burn-Out at the Wateree Station.   Acrobat Document - 287 kb

The Carbon Burn-Out facility located at Santee-Cooper's Winyah power station, was placed on-line 4th quarter 2002. View Winyah construction photos.

Carbon Burn-Out removes ammonia from fly ash without additional equipment or operating expense. This is an invaluable feature for those plants being fitted for post-combustion NO_x control, either SCR or SNCR. View our report describing the ammonia removal capabilities of the Carbon Burn-Out process   Acrobat Document - 309 kb

Above: Automated truck loading and weighing available round-the-clock.

To maximize product availability and minimize labor expense, CBO facilities include an ash storage dome plus automated truck loading and weighing. This system is available for loading round-the-clock and requires neither plant operators nor scale house attendants.

Carbon Burn-Out is a patented system of carbon reduction in high-carbon fly ash developed by PMI. The technology is founded on the time-proven fluid bed combustion technology. For more information, contact PMI via E-MAIL or call at 1-866-9-FLYASH.

An important feature of Carbon Burn-Out is heat recovery from the residual carbon's combustion. Heat is recovered from both the flue gas and the hot product ash. This recovered heat is typically returned to the host powerplant by heating a portion of the power plant's condensate stream. This portion of the condensate stream bypasses existing feedwater heaters, thereby reducing the amount of extraction steam required, which in turn increases the quantity of steam available to the turbine-generator.

Above: General overview of the Carbon Burn-out process

Above: Schematic showing other key features of the PMI Carbon Burn-out process including heat recovery