New Coal-Burning Boiler at Purdue U. Will Reduce Emissions

Purdue University is cleaning up its act. Its trustees voted Friday to build a $53-million boiler that will rely on new technology to burn coal more cleanly and reduce the university’s overall emissions.

According to a university announcement, the new boiler will produce up to 300,000 pounds of steam an hour. Between a “circulating fluidized bed technology” for combustion and a fabric-filter “baghouse” for isolating particulate emissions, the new boiler system will be able to capture “more than 90 percent of the acid gas, mercury and soot emissions” caused by burning coal, and will produce “low emissions of smog-forming pollutants,” the university says.

Wayne W. Kjonaas, Purdue’s vice president for physical facilities, said the new boiler was “necessary to ensure that the plant remains in compliance with environmental regulations in the most economical manner and to ensure a reliable source of heating for all of the new facilities constructed in the last decade.”

The boiler will be able to burn new biofuels as they become available, and its increased efficiency is expected to save the university several million dollars a year. It will come online in 2011.