The Global Energy Association summed up the results of the IV All-Russian contest of implemented innovative projects in the field of energy, The Energy of Breakthrough. This year’s winner is a young scientist from St Petersburg Alexey Trinchenko.

He will receive an award in the amount of one million rubles for providing a scientific base for the efficiency of reducing the number of harmful substances during the combustion of solid fuel (coal, peat, oil shale) and increasing the reliability of furnaces and boilers at thermal electric power plants.

Alexey Trinchenko, the Associate Professor of “Nuclear and Thermal Energy Department” of the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, provided a project of implementing the low-temperature vortex method of environmental protection from harmful emissions of thermal electric power plants.

This method has initially been submitted by Prof. V.V. Pomerantsev and finalized by the university’s and the "NTV-Energo"’s scientists.

It solves the problem of reducing the harmful effects through modernizing the power boiler by introducing the low-temperature vortex combustion method. This technology differs from the traditional technology of the coal-dust boiler due to the fuel’s bulk burning in the boiler’s lower vortex zone. In this zone, a vortex is created from the burning fuel, and due to this, the formed nitrogen oxides decompose on the surface of the fuel particles. It results in a significant reduction in the generation of toxic nitrogen oxides in combustion products and in the binding of sulfur oxides to the mineral part of the fuel, which ultimately leads to a decrease in their concentration in the flue gases and a decrease in emissions into the atmosphere.
>What makes the low-temperature vortex method so important? It increases the efficiency of the boilers leading to savings in fuel and increased reliability and reduces emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere.

The NTV method has been tested on practically the whole range of the solid organic fuels on steam boilers with steam production from 75 to 1600 t / h in Russia and abroad (China, Estonia, etc.). After that, the NTV method was introduced at a number of power facilities, such as Novomoskovsk SDPS (Novomoskovsk) Thermal power station "Southern thermal station" (Rubtsovsk, Altai Krai), Kirov TPP-4 (Kirov), Nazarovskaya GRES (Nazarovo, Krasnoyarsk Territory). Implementing the NTV method on these facilities saves more than 55,000,000 rubles a year due to reducing the budget fees for the air pollution.

Besides, the accumulated positive experience contributed to the creation and implementation of a multi-fuel boiler that allows burning different types of fuel, such as coal and peat, with high efficiency and with minimal harmful emissions, without excluding the possibility of working with natural gas in a single furnace.

Introducing the NTV method into the power industry is possible in both constructing the new power facilities as well as in reconstructing the existing equipment. In case of a new building, the use of the NTV method reduces construction costs due to a reducing the building’s height. Reconstruction of the boiler equipment aiming to introduce the NTV method lies in installing the new boilers in the existing building cells, thus increasing the capacity of the boiler plant by 10-20% without the need of constructing a new building.

According to Alexey Trinchenko, developing the technologies for the energy use of coal and other solid fuels is hugely relevant, as both electricity and heat are currently produced mainly by burning fossil fuel. The positive experience of using the NTV-combustion method will allow recommending it when implementing the "Energy Strategy of Russia" in the long-term perspective.

"In my opinion, a large-scale and widespread introduction of this technology will allow to increase the efficiency of using solid fuels complying with the environmental standards. It is doubly pleasant for me that the experts made their choice in favor of 100% Russian scientific development. The low-temperature vortex method has been invented by the Russian scientific school, so winning the Energy of Breakthrough contest inspired our entire team for continued research and project’s further improvement," the scientist concluded.

The Global Energy Association holds the Energy of Breakthrough annual contest since 2014. Its primary aim is to support talented Russian scientists and to stimulate them for the further development of their technologies.

The Energy of Breakthrough contest winner will receive his award during the solemn ceremony within the framework of the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, from 3 to 7 October 2018.

Based on globalenergyprize.org