Quantification of gypsum crystal nucleation, growth, and breakage rates in a wet flue gas desulfurization pilot plant

The aim of this work is to study the influence of nucleation, growth and breakage on the particle size distribution (PSD) of gypsum crystals produced by the wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD) process. The steady state PSD, obtained in a falling film wet FGD pilot plant during desulfurization of a 1000 ppm(v) SO2 gas stream, displayed a strong nonlinear behaviour (in a ln(n(l)) vs. l plot) at the lower end of the particle size range, compared to the well-known linear mixed suspension mixed product removal model.

A transient population balance breakage model, fitted to experimental data, was able to model an increase in the fraction of small particles, but not to the extent observed experimentally. A three-parameter, size-dependent growth model, previously used for sodium sulphate decahydrate and potash alum, was able to describe the experimental data, indicating either size-dependent integration kinetics or growth rate dispersion. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009