Abstract (eng)
The mineral chemical investigation of slags from a fluidized bed combustion, where the material mainly consists of quartz sand, wood residues and their fouling, is the central topic of this thesis. In this fluidized bed combustion quartz sand is used as a heat transfer medium and tends to agglomerate for unknown reasons. The formation of slags is a problem for the operation of the bed combustion system. The research question is to find out the chemical composition of the minerals, to clarify the origin of the chemical composition of the material itself and to explain the unknown reasons for the formation of the slags.
13 optical thin sections were made from hand pieces taken from three different areas of the combustion chamber. Methods such as optical microscopy for monitoring, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) for quantitative chemical analysis, as well as electron probe micro analysis (EPMA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for qualitative chemical analysis were used for the empirical part of the master’s thesis.
The results show that new mineral phases grow at the existing conditions (850°C), such as Wollastonite, Cristobalite, K2Ca4Si8O21 and a quartz-rich melt. The wood residues and their fouling are responsible for the supply of big amounts of K2O, Na2O, MgO and CaO, as well as small amounts of FeO and MnO. It is primarily K2O-enriched-melt that coats most minerals or reacts chemically with grains of garnet-minerals. Due to permanent fusion and agglomeration of further materials, slags originate because of this coating.